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John N. Edwards 



BIOGRAPHY, MEMOIRS, REMINISCENCES AND 
RECOLLECTIONS 



HIS BRILLIANT CAREER AS SOLDIER, AUTHOR, 
AND JOURNALIST 



CHOICE COLLECTION OF HIS MOST NOTABLE AND INTERESTING 
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES, TOGETHER WITH SOME UNPUB- 
LISHED POEMS AND MANY PRIVATE LETTERS. 



ALSO A REPRINT OF 



SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO 

AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR 



COMPILED BY HIS WIFE 

JENNIE EDWARDS 



Kansas City, Mo. : 
JENNIE EDWARDS, PUBLISHER 

iSSq h 






COPYRIGHTED 

JENNIE EDWARDS 

1889 



DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, 

FRINTSRS AND BINDEBS, 
CHICAGO. 



DEDICATION. 



TO THE FRIENDS OF MY DEAD HUSBAND, 
SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS, CONFEDERATES 
AND FEDERALS, DEMOCRATS AND REPUB- 
LICANS, I INTRUST THIS WORK 

JENNIE EDWARDS. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

Dedication. By Jennie Edwards 3 

Biographical Sketch. By Rev. Geo. Plattenburg 9 

Twenty Years of Friendship. By Morrison Munford. ... 37 
Miscellaneous Writings of John N. Edwards: 

Poor Carlota 65 

A Stranger in a Strange Land 66 

Pilot, What op the Ship ? 68 

quantrell 69 

Thomas Buchanan Read 70 

James Gordon Bennett 71 

Fenimore C ooper 73 

Schuyler Colfax 74 

Bon Voyage, Miss Nellie 75 

Little Nelson W. Daley , . . 76 

Henry Clay Dean 77 

Henry Ward Beecher 78 

General Albert Sidney Johnston 80 

Katkofp 82 

A Fish Story ' 84 

Prohibition 85 

On Democracy 88 

Not Men Entirely 89 

Every Tub on Its Own Bottom 91 

Bourbon Democracy 92 

A Very Plain Remedy 93 

M. Taine on Napoleon 95 

The Statue to Calhoun 97 

Charles Stewart Parnell 98 

The Battle of the Flags 99 

General Gordon 100 

Victor Hugo 102 

Henry M. Stanley 104 

Death from Starvation 105 

In a Foreign Land 107 

Always a Woman 108 

More Literary Mutiliation 110 

Christmas Rejoicings Ill 

5 



Vi CONTENTS. 

PAQB. 

Poor Valentine Baker 114 

roscoe conkling 116 

On Southern Poets 118 

As to King David 119 

Dr. JosEni M. Wood 121 

War Quaker Fashion 123 

Will-O'-The-Wisp 124 

Wolesley on McClellan and Lee 126 

Cleveland Retires to Private Life 128 

Washington's Birthday 130 

Time Makes all Things Even 132 

James N. Burnes 134 

Death of the Prince Imperial 137 

Bazaine 138 

The Ney Myth 140 

Don Carlos and Mexico 142 

Poor France 143 

Edmund O'Donovan 146 

The Revised Np:w Testament 148 

The German Succession 149 

A New Revision op the Bible 150 

The Revised Bible 150 

Marriage op Captain Collins 152 

The Great American Novel 152 

OuiDA AND Zola 154 

Is Death All? , 155 

The New Y ear 156 

Whose Fault is It? 157 

Gone Down at Sea 158 

Better War By Land than Sea 160 

A Close Call 161 

The KiLLmo of Jesse James 163 

Veteran Sam 165 

Address Accepting a Flag 167 

Carrier's Address of The Missouri Expositor .... 168 

Murder Done; or, The Gypsy's Story 171 

The Bivouac of the Dead 174 

The Marriage of Pere Hyacinths 176 

Napoleon and His Detractors 178 

The Best One Hundred Books 180 

Personal Tributes 181 

Newspaper Tributes 196 

Shelby's Expedition to Mexico. An Unwritten Lbaf 

OF THE War 229 



JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

BY REV. GEO. PLATTENBURG, DOVER, MO. 



The subject of this brief sketch, John Newman 
Edwards, was born in Warren County, Va. , January 4, 
1839. Whilst a mere boy he learned tpye-setting at the 
town of Front Eoyal, a place now of great and heroic mem- 
ories, in the Gazette office, a paper at this writing called 
the Sentinel. Even at that time he was regarded as a boy 
of extraordinary powers, having, at the immature age of 
fourteen years, as testifies a contemporary, written a story 
that gave him '^ wide celebrity. '' While yet a boy, through 
the influence of his relation, Thomas J. Yerby, of Lexing- 
ton, now of Marshall, Mo., he was induced to come to the 
State of Missouri in 1854 or 1855. Arriving in Lexington, 
he soon thereafter entered upon his avocation of printer 
in the office of the Expositor, by whom conducted I do not 
now recall. Here, really, began the education of this 
singularly gifted boy, wjiose manhood was to be so rich in 
strange adventures and romance. Of schools Major 
Edwards knew but little, his advantages of this kind were 
limited and poor in character. As a boy, he loved soli- 
tude — this peculiarity in manhood made him shy to the 
verge of girlish timidity. He loved the fields, sweet with 
''^the breath of kine " and the new-mown hay. He 
lingered in the dim vistas of the woods, and from out their 
slumberous shadows, dreamily watched the ceaseless swirl 
of the great river. This love of nature and its communion, 

9 



10 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

made him fond of the hunt and the pastime of gentle 
Izaak Walton. 

His life during these years, in and about Lexington, was 
of the ordinary uneventful character, belonging to extreme 
youth and peaceful times. But the storm was brewing. 
The distant and sullen muttering of a great political 
upheaval was breaking ominously upon the nation^s ears. 
Great questions lying radically at the very base of the two 
antagonistic conceptions of the American system of gov- 
ernment, were loudly and hotly contested by the sections 
of the country. The slavery question was not the cause, 
but the occasion of the threatened rupture. Whatever 
men may say, or however much they may deplore sectional 
controversy, there were, as there are, but two great drifts 
of thought as to the true theory of our institutions, the 
one, denominated, ^' State Eights," the other, the steady 
trend toward centralization. Leaving the truth or 
falsity of these contested theories out of the question, the 
fact remains that out of them came one of the mightiest 
struggles known to the annals of the race. The rupture 
came. The '^golden bowl was broken," the ^''silver cord 
was loosened," and there came an era of hate and blood 
that all good men ought gladly to wish to be forgotten. 

HIS CAREER AS A SOLDIER. 

It is at this juncture that Major Edwards began his 
active career. In the year 1862, Gen. Jo. 0. Shelby 
organized a regiment near Waverly, Lafayette County, 
Mo. Of this regiment Frank Gordon was Lieutenant- 
Colonel. Colonels Shanks and Beal G. Jeans, Avith Capt. 
Ben Elliott in command of a battalion, joined and united 
with Shelby at this point. This command moved on the 
day of the Lone Jack fight with a view of forming a junc- 
tion with Cockrell and Coffee. The forces of Shanks, 
Jeans, and Elliott, with his own regiment, constituted the 
original force under Shelby. Of this command, after the 
expiration of several months, upon the retirement of 



BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 11 

Captain Arthur, John N. Edwards received the appoint- 
ment of Brigade- Adjutant, with the rank of Major. This 
occurred in the month of September, 1863. When finally 
Shelby was promoted to the command of a division, 
Edwards shared the fortune of his generous and chival- 
rous leader and became the Adjutant of the division, I 
think with the rank of Colonel, though of this I have no 
positive evidence at hand. In this positionhe continued 
until the disbanding of the whole command after Lee's 
surrender. 

Shelby's force, as we have seen, left Waverly to 
form a junction with Cockrell and Coffee, but on reaching 
Columbus in Johnson County, he heard of the Lone 
Jack battle, and was compelled to revise his plans. 
He began to work his way south, invironed by almost 
indescribable difficulties, and never at any time were the 
experiences and dangers of this illustrious body of men 
greater or graver. Care, prudence and courage of the 
highest order were manifested in successfully making this 
junction, with the men that fought at Lone Jack, an 
accomplished fact. This was done at or near Newtonia, 
from which point the united force fell back to McKissock's 
Springs, in Arkansas. Of this force, as Senior Colonel, 
Shelby took command, Lieut. -Col. Frank Gordon being 
at the head of the old regiment. From McKissock's they 
fell back to Cane Hill, a place made memorable years 
before by one of those tragedies so incident to frontier life 
of almost indescribable horror. Here they rested. Hind- 
man at that time having his headquarters at Van Buren. 
To Shelby was given the arduous and dangerous duty of 
watching and contesting, step by step, the Federal advance 
from Fayetteville. It was necessarily Shelby's additional 
duty to cover Hindman's movements at Van Buren, Blount 
performing a like service for Curtiss. During this period 
the splendid soldierly qualities of this whole command were 
daily exhibited. The soldier alone knows the hardships, 
and the demand for an almost superhuman endurance in 
this form of military service, of such varied fortune of 
defeat and victory. During the whole period immediately 



12 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

prior to the battle of Prairie Grove, Shelby held the posi- 
tion in front of Hindman^s advance, and finally, on a frosty 
December morning, he opened the hard contested fight of 
Prairie Grove. The sad December night before the battle 
is thus described by Major Edwards himself, and as he 
alone could do it: '^The moon this night had been 
eclipsed, too, and upon many of the soldiers the weird, 
mysterious appearance of the sky, the pale, ghost-like 
phantom of a cloud across its crimson disc, had much of 
superstitious influence. At first, when the glowing camp 
fires had burned low and comfortable a great flood of 
radiance was pouring over the mountains and silvering 
even the hoary white beard of the moss clustering about 
the blank, bare faces of the precipices. The shadows con- 
tracted finally. The moon seemed on fire, and burned 
itself to ashes. The gigantic buckler of the heavens, 
studded all over with star-diamonds, had for its boss a 
gloomy, yellowish, struggling moon. Like a wounded 
King, it seemed to bleed royally over the nearest cloud, 
then wrapt its dark mantle about its face, even as Csesar 
did, and sink gradually into extinction. There was a 
hollow grief of the winds among the trees, and the snowy 
phantasm of the frost crinkled and rustled its gauze robes 
under foot. The men talked in subdued voices around 
their camp-fires, and were anxious to draw from the 
eclipse some happy augury. Eelief exhibited itself on 
every face when the moon at least shone out broad and 
good, and the dark shadows were again lit up with tremu- 
lous rays of light.'' 

And e'er the great sun's white splendors kissed the rime- 
robed earth, Shelby's voice, clear as a bugle's note, came 
to gallant Shanks, ^'Forward, Major!" And since the 
day that men first learned war, they never rode with more 
splendid courage into battle; not one of all these men but 
deserved the golden spurs of chivalrous knighthood. 
From this field, stained with such precious blood on this 
chill December day, Shelby again occupied the post of 
honor and danger, covering Hindman's retreat. Falling 
back slowly, on reaching Van Buren he found that General 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 

Hindman had abandoned his position at Van Buren, 
and had fallen back to Little Rock. Shelby finally went 
into camp at Lewisburg, on the Arkansas River, and 
became virtually an outpost of Hindman's command at 
Little Rock. Shelby in all this service acted independ- 
ently, although shortly prior to the Prairie Grove battle 
Shelby^s and Marmaduke's Brigades had been united, form- 
ing Marmaduke's Division; the latter becoming Division 
Commander by virtue of a Brigadier^s commission at that 
time in his possession. At this camp was organized an 
expedition into Missouri, the leading event of which was 
the capture of Springfield, January 8, 1863. But being 
unable to hold the position won, they moved on in an 
easterly direction to the town of Hartsville, where a dis- 
astrous defeat was sustained. From this point a retreat 
was effected, and the force went finally into camp at Bates- 
ville, on the White River in Arkansas. Here, probably in 
the month of April, subsequent to the events described, 
was organized what is known as the '^ Cape Girardeau 
Expedition,'' as the attack upon this town was the leading 
event of the campaign, where the subject of this sketch 
was wounded and taken prisoner. Some time prior to that 
measureless blunder of a most pitiful senility, the disastrous 
assault upon Helena, Arkansas, Major Edwards was 
exchanged and had rejoined his command, taking part in 
the fateful scenes of that dark day when so many gallant 
and fearless men were slaughtered upon the altar of a 
boundless stupidity. Shelby was wounded in this battle. 
His command then moved to Jackson Port, where he 
remained until the Federal advance under that humane 
soldier. General Frederick Steele, was made on Little Rock. 
Shelby was commanded to take position on Bayou Metoe, 
to watch Steele's advance from points on the White River. 
Price's whole force was then occupying an intrenched 
position on the Arkansas River immediately opposite 
Little Rock. Colonel Frank Gordon's regiment was occu- 
pying a position on the extremity of a spur of Big Rock, 
in full view of the city. In all the scenes before Little 
Rock Shelby's division was a very large part, and finally 



14 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

covered Price's retreat from the city. At Arkadelphia 
another expedition into Missouri was organized, at the 
earnest solicitation of General Shelby, and so the raid of 
1863 was inaugurated. He gained permission to select a 
number of men from each regiment of his division, to the 
number of 800. After a single day's march they came 
within the enemy's territory. Marching day and night, 
engaged in countless skirmishes, they reached and captured 
Boonville ; from thence they came to Marshall, where they 
were surrounded by not less than 5,000 men under 
Ev/ing, Crittenden and Pleasonton. The two formed in 
front, the latter in the rear. After three or four hours' 
fighting, Shelby determined to cut his way out, and an 
order to this effect was borne to Colonel Shanks by Major 
Edwards. The plan was successfully accomjilished despite 
the mighty odds against them. The inequality of the 
forces gave especial glory to the deed. 

But it is not possible in a brief sketch like this to fol- 
low the fortunes of this band of noble soldiers under so 
dashing and fearless a leader, in a long war. Of the 
scenes so tragic of this vast conflict each soldier might say 
with Aeneas as he recounted the miseries and the fall of 
Troy, to Dido and her Tyrians, until the sinking stars 
invited to repose '' Magna Pars Fui." Of the great con- 
test and its strangely varied fortunes they were a great 
part. It was at this point in the history of this great 
internecine struggle that Major Edwards began to receive 
that military prominence he so richly deserved. As a 
soldier, he was not only brave and fearless, and wise in 
council, but gentle, tender, courteous to the humblest 
soldier beneath him. As he was whole-hearted in the 
cause he espoused, so dealt he kindly with the men that 
shared his convictions and the fortunes of a common cause. 

I here employ the beautiful tribute of Major J. F. 
Stonestreet, who shared with him the vicissitudes of a 
long and bitter struggle. It is better said than I could 
say it : 

A COMRADE'S TRIBUTE. 

The achievements of Shelby and his men are matters 
of histoid . Of them all Major Edwards was the hero. 
The individual instances of his bravery in battle, his 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 

wisdom in council, his tender solicitude for his men, his 
self-sacrificing spirit, would fill a volume. Major J. F. 
Stonestreet, of this city, who was with him until he 
crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, tells well the story of 
his part in the great struggle. 

** I cannot speak of John Edwards without emotion," 
he said. ^^He was the noblest man of the many noble 
men who took part in the great struggle in the West. I 
can not begin to tell of all the instances of his valor in 
battle, his kindness in camp, his care for his comrades, his 
noble self-sacrifice, his great brain and noble heart. No 
one but those who were with him in those dark hours 
can appreciate his magnificent spirit. He was only a boy 
when he joined Gordon^s regiment, but he soon became 
the hero of Shelby's old brigade. It was a grand sight to see 
him in battle. He was always where the fight was thickest. 
He was absolutely devoid of fear. The men had the con- 
fidence in him that they would have had, had he been a God. 
Their trust in him was sublime. He had a genius for war. 
While he was as brave as a lion, his courage was not of the 
rash, impetuous sort that led him into foolhardy under- 
takings. His wisdom was as great as his bravery. No one 
appreciates more the character and achievmentsof General 
Shelby than I; but when the dark days came, it was John 
Edwards who, more than anybody else, inspired hope in 
the hearts of the men, cheered and encouraged them, and 
spurred them on to renewed exertions. 

^*This self-sacrifice was noble. I have seen him dis- 
mount and give his horse away to a tired trooper. In the 
hospital once I saw him take off his shirt and tear it up for 
bandages for the wounded, not knowing when or how he 
was to get another one. I have seen him take off his coat 
and give it to a soldier who, he thought, was more in need 
of it. His spirit was so gentle that it hurt him more to 
see others suffer than to sufferhimself. What heroism he 
displayed in that awful retreat from Westport ! Small- 
pox broke out among the men. John Edwards feared it as 
little as he did the bullets of the enemy. He would take 
a soldier with the small-pox in his arms, carry him to the 
most comfortable place that could be secured, and nurse 
him with the care of a woman. He would brave any- 
thing to secure a delicacy for a sick soldier. When we 
were eating horseflesh on that awful march, and the 
men were starving, naked and ready to give up, it was he 
who cheered and encouraged them and held them 
together. His heart was so big that he thought of every- 
body before himself. 



16 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

''In battle he was a very Mars; in camp he was as 
gentle as a woman. The men loved him, and little 
wonder. He could never do enough for them. Brave men, 
all of them, they recognized him as the bravest and the 
brainiest. 'Follow me, boys,"* I have heard him cr,%'and 
I will take you where the bullets are the thickest atd the 
sabers the sharpest,' and then, his sword flashed in his 
hand, he would be off to where the fight was the hottest. 
And the men would be after him with a confidence and 
devotion that insured victory. He was the bravest man in 
war and the gentlest in peace that I ever saw. He was 
the soul of honor. He was one man in a million. He 
was the Chevalier Bayard of Missouri." 

Notwithstanding his intrepid bravery. Major Stone- 
street says he was badly wounded but once. That was in 
Marmaduke's raid on Springfield, when he was shot and 
taken prisoner in the fight near Hartsville. He was after- 
ward exchanged and rejoined his regiment at Jackson- 
ville, Ark. He especially distinguished himself for 
bravery and strategy in the 4th of July fight at Helena, 
which was in progress when Vicksburg surrendered. It 
was said of him that he had more horses shot from under 
him, and gave more horses away to those whom he thought 
needed them more than himself, than any man in Shelby's 
brigade. 

So testifies one who knew John Edwards through all 
the trying scenes of a contest all too bitter, and who loved 
him well. John Edwards was a born soldier. The genius 
of war and the genius of poetry alike presided at his 
birth. The courage of the Knight and the poesy of the 
Troubadour were alike his. He crowned the brow of war 
with golden nimbus of the poet. For his deft fingers the 
brand of the grizzled grenadier and the minstrel's lute 
were alike fashioned. He brought the chivalry and song 
of the thirteenth into the Titanic struggles of the nine- 
teenth century. 

An officer once bore a report of General Shelby's to Gen- 
eral Holmes, who on reading it exclaimed with an impious 
expletive: "Why, Shelby is a poet as well as a fighter!" 
"No, replied the officer, but his Adjutant is a born poet." 
It was this remarkable combination of elements in Major 
Edwards that made him as brave and fearless as he was 
tender and gentle. It also accounts for the strong. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 

religious sentiment of his nature mentioned in a brief 
speech at his grave. Belief in the supernatural elements 
of religion and poesy go hand in hand. Goethe stated a 
very large and a very fundamental truth when he wrote, 
^'Der Aberglauhe ist die Poesie cles Lele^is" — the ''over- 
faith, the supernatural, is the ground. of lifers highest 
political forms. 

IN MEXICO-MARRIAGE, ETC. 

After the close of the war Major Edwaras followed 
the fortunes of his old leader with others of his fellow- 
soldiers into Mexico, where he spent two years, a deeply 
interested spectator of the affairs of Maximilian's Empire. 
With this amiable, but unfortunate Prince, and with his 
wife the '^Poor Carlotta," he became a favorite, and 
through him was negotiated and obtained the grant 
which enabled Shelby^ and perhaps fifty others, to estab- 
lish the Cordova Colony of Carlotta. He and Governor 
Allen, of Louisiana, a man of beautiful spirit and richly 
stored mind, established a newspaper, The Mexican Times, 
devoted to the restoration of an era of peace, prosperity 
and good government for this sadly distracted people. 
Whilst here, the material of one of his books, ''An Un- 
written Leaf of the War,'^ was produced and gathered, 
which appears in this present volume. What a strangely 
romantic period these two years must have been to the 
dreamy, poetic soldier of the North. The rich, tropical 
foliage, the skies luminously blue, the warm airs, the 
voluptuous climate, the romantic people inheriting the 
glorious traditions of Old Spain, the memories of the Cid, 
songs of Calderon and Lope de Vega, chanted in the sweet 
the Castilian tongue must have been things of ceaseless 
charm to the imaginative temperament so strongly marked, 
in Major Edwards. It was a period of romantic adventure, 
and from time to time he has related to me singular 
episodes that occurred during his association with Governor 
Allen, but brevity denies indulgence to the reminiscent 
mood. 



18 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

In the year 18G7, liaviDg returned from Mexico, Major 
Edwards went on the Rejntblican as a reporter, then under 
the editorial control of Col. William Hyde, a noble 
gentleman and an able writer, whose contributions to that 
great paper have rarely been equaled in western journalism. 

In the year 1808, in connection with the brilliant and 
versatile Col. John C. Moore, now of the Pueblo Dis- 
patch, he inaugurated the Kansas City Times, with the 
financial support of R. B. Drury & Co. It was at this 
time that he was married. This marriage took place on 
March 28, 1871, to Mary Virginia Plattenburg, of Dover, 
Lafayette County, Missouri. A woman scarce less bril- 
liant than himself, of liigh impulses, poetic sentiment and 
of an uncommon literary faculty, she was a fit companion 
for this molder of " fiery and delectable shapes." They 
were married at the residence of Gen. John 0. Shelby, 
near Aullville, in Lafayette County. This marriage took 
place away from the home of the bride because of an inter- 
posed objection on the part of the parents, grounded solely 
upon the near family relationship of the parties. The 
fruit of this marriage is two boys and one girl. The boys 
are John aged seventeen and James fourteen years, the»girl 
Laura eight. 

THE DUEL WITH COLONEL FOSTER. 

Major Edwards remained on the Times until 1873, two 
years after it passed into its present management, and 
greatly aided in building it up into its present command- 
ing position as director of western thought and enterprise. 
In this same year, he went upon the St. Louis Despatcli, 
owned and controlled by Mr. Sti'ison Ilutcbins, whom he 
followed into the St. Louis Times. It was while at Avork 
on the Times that his duel with Col. Emory S. Foster 
took place. The difficulty grew out of certain questions 
incident to the great civil struggle whose memories were 
yet fresh in the minds of all, and its passions still unallayed. 
These matters were discussed with great acerbity of 
temper and sharpness of expression. The acrimony engen- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 19 

dered by a long, bitter contest, was still more or less domi- 
nant in the minds of men in all sections. It can serve no 
good purpose here to dwell on the questions themselves 
or their mode of treatment; they belong to the dead past, 
and there let them remain. I know that the acrimony so 
rife at the time of this occurrence with Major Edwards, in 
common with the better class of men in both sections, was 
a thing to be deplored and forgotten. The friends and 
admirers of Major Edwards are of all parties. There are 
no more tender or appreciative tributes to his memory 
than those written by the men in blue. Mrs. Edwards 
informs me that she has received as many expressions of 
sympathjs and admiration from Federal as from Confeder- 
ate soldiers. The perpetuation of the rancor of the war is 
left to the camp-follower and coward. I shall here enter 
on no defense of Major Edwards' ideas on the duello. 
With his education, and sensitive perception of the worth 
of personal honor, it is easily accounted for. Omitting 
the offensive paragraphs we give this statement from a 
morning paper the day after the rencounter: 

Beloit, Wis., Sept. 4, 1875. 

A duel was fought at five o'clock this afternoon, six 
miles north of Rockford, in Winnebago County, Illinois, 
between Maj. John JST. Edwards, of the St. Louis Times 
and Despatch, and Col. E. S. Foster, of the St. Louis 
Journal. The origin of the affair grew out of the recent 
invitation to Jefferson Davis to address the Winnebago 
Fair. The St. Louis Times of August the 25th contained 
an article written by Major Edwards, commenting upon 
the treatment of Mr. Davis, and reflecting upon the intol- 
erant spirit manifested. To this the Jour Jial replied that 
the writer of the Times article had lied, and knew he lied, 
when he wrote it. 

Major Edwards took exception to this and demanded 
a retraction of the offensive language. Colonel Foster, 
the editor of the Journal, disavowed any personal allusion 
to Major Edwards, but declined to retract the language. 
A lengthy correspondence ensued. Col. H. B. Branch 
acting as the friend of Major Edwards, and Col. W. D. W. 
Barnard as the friend of Colonel Foster, the result of 
which is embodied in the last letters of the principals, 
which show the difference between them : 



20 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 30, 1875. 
''Col. Emory S. Foster: 

^'Sir: In reply to your letter of this date I have to state 
that your reply to the reasonable request I made of you, 
to-wit, to withdraw and to disavow all language in your 
editorial of the 25th inst., personally offensive to myself, is 
evasive and not responsive to my request. In my letter 
to you I referred solely to what was directly personal to 
myself, without inquiring whether my editorial, or yours 
in answer to it, exceeded the usages of the press in discuss- 
ing a subject generally or referring to bodies of persons. 
I can not admit your right to introduce these questions 
into this controversy which refer solely to your allusion to 
the writer of the Times editorial. 

'' The disclaimer in the first four paragraphs of your 
letter would be satisfactory had you followed it^ up by a 
withdrawal of the offensive terms of your editorial, so far 
as they referred to me personally. But as you decline to 
do so I must, therefore, construe your letter of this date, 
and its spirit, as a refusal on your part to do me an act of 
common justice, and so regarding it, I deem it my duty 
to ask of you that satisfaction which one gentleman has a 
right to ask of another. 

''My friend, Col. H. B. Branch, who will deliver this, 
is authorized to arrange with any friend you may select, 
the details of further arrangements connected with the 
subject. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

J. N. Edwards.^\ 

St. Louis, Aug. 31, 1875. 
" Col. John N. Edwards: 

'USir: Yours of the 30th inst. was handed to my friend, 
W. D. AY. Barnard, Esq., at 11 o'clock this A. M., by your 
friend. Col. H. B. Branch, and is now before me. In 
reply, I have to state that I emphatically disclaimed in 
my note of yesterday any intention of referring to you, or 
in any way offering to you, a personal offense in the mat- 
ter in which you have raised the issue. 

"My friend Mr. Barnard will have charge of my honor 
in the premises. I am, very respectfully, your obedient 
servant, Emory S. Foster.'' 

It being found impossible, as appears from the above 
correspondence, to accomplish a reconciliation between 
the parties by a withdrawal of the offensive language, the 
matter passed into the hands of the seconds, Col. H. B. 
Branch, on the part of Major Edwards, and W. I). W. 
Barnard on the part of Colonel Foster. 



BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 

They were to meet on the 4th day of September, 1875, 
between the hours of 6 and 7 A. m., or as soon thereafter 
as the parties could reach the grounds, in the county of 
Winnebago, State of Illinois. The weapons. Coitus navy 
revolvers calibre 38, the distance twenty paces. Each 
party entitled to one shot, unless both demanded a second. 
The firing was to be at the words, thus': '^ Are you ready; 
one, two, three '^ — the firing to occur after the word 
^'two^^ and not after the word *^^three/^ The seconds were 
to be similarly armed, and any violation of the rules agreed 
upon entitled the second of the one to shoot down the 
offending second of the other. 

Upon arriving at Rockford both parties drove to the 
Holland House and partook of dinner. 

About 3 o'clock the seconds completed their arrange- 
ments. It was decided to drive five miles north on 
the Beloit road, and have the meeting in some secluded 
spot. Both principals agreed, and Col. Edwards^ party 
started off in a hack at half -past three, the understanding 
being for them to await the other party for half an hour 
after arriving as far out as designated. If the challenged 
party did not arrive on time it was to be regarded as an 
evidence of cowardice. 

The Foster party caught up with the other party just 
as they were halting at an estimated distance from the 
city of five miles. 

■ The spot where the halt was called was a shaded valley, 
with a winding stream called Turtle Creek, running 
through it. The seconds held another consultation, and^ 
the site suiting them, they went in search of a place sufii- 
ciently far from the Beloit road to be safe from intrusion. 
After an absence of five minutes they were successful in 
their search, and on their return the whole party left the 
carriages. The hackmen, who were wondering what was 
in the wind, but had not the enterprise to gratify their 
curiosity, were told to wait in the neighborhood for a few 
minutes, which instructions they filled to the very letter. 
The names of the parties who went on the.field were: Col. 
John N. Edwards, the challenging principal; Col. H. B. 
Branch, second; Dr. Montgomery, surgeon; Dr. Munford, 
of the Kansas City Tmes, friend; Major Foster, principal; 
W. D. W. Barnard, second; Dr. P. S. O'Reilly, surgeon, 
and the representative of the Tribune, friend. 

The spot selected was a couple of hundred yards to the 
west of the road, a beautifully shaded valley in which 
horses and cattle were grazing. The seconds took up 
position near a tree and commenced to examine the 



23 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAllDS. 

weaj^ons. The principals were a few yards apart, Foster 
reclining on a bank, coolly smoking a cigar, Edwards 
resting with his back against a tree and conversing with 
Dr. Munford, with whom he served in the Confederate 
army. The surgeons took their cases of instruments to 
the hill-side, where they sat watching the preparations for 
the encounter. Some time was occupied in the examina- 
tion and loading of the pistols, and while the necessary 
part of the work was in progress, the principals each 
divested himself of his watch and other articles which 
might turn off a bullet. The next procedure was to 
measure the ground, a matter which was gone through 
with business-like dispatch and coolness. Twenty paces 
was the distance. The positions were north and south, 
and were marked by a short stake driven into the ground. 
Branches of trees were cleared out of the way to prevent 
injury from falls, and other details attended to which 
might render things comfortable for the parties imme- 
diately interested. The next important step was to toss 
up for position and the call. Branch, Edwards's second, 
won the choice of position, and Barnard the call. This 
fact was communicated to the principals, who expressed 
themselves satisfied with the result. The principals and 
seconds then walked up the ground. Edwards asked 
Foster^s opinion as to position, but the latter said he had 
no choice. They both received their weapons from the 
seconds and Edwards chose the south end of the ground. 
Before the final arrangements were completed, the friends 
were requested to relieve themselves of their pistols, a 
precaution against a general skirmish should either party 
feel aggrieved. Dr. Munford was the only one who had a 
pistol on his person, and he at once 2:)laced it in his valise. 
The conditions of the fight were then read. Edwards 
requested Barnard to articulate the words, "Are you ready? 
one, two, three," in a distinct manner, so as to prevent 
unpleasant haste. Both men at this point displayed mar- 
velous nerve, Foster smoking his cigar in an unconcerned 
way. Positions were then taken up, the the seconds shak- 
ing hands with their principals, and receiving instructions 
in case they should fall. At length all was ready. The 
seconds had pistols in their hands ready to revenge any 
infringements of the code. There was an ominous pause. 
At exactly 5 o'clock the men faced each other and took men- 
tal aim; then came the words, "Are you ready? " in clear, 
distinct tones: "one, two.'^ Before the word three the duel- 
ists fired almost simultaneously. The surgeons anxiously 
looked each to his man, expecting him to fall, but neither 



nTCGIlAPIIICAL SKETCH. 23 



was woniuler. . ''A little high ! '' exclaimed Foster, as soon as 
Lehad tiitn^. Edwards demanded another fire, in an excited 
tone. 11 LS second asked if lie would adhere to that resolution. 
^'Yes/'herep!ied,"itisjustas I told you before we came on 
the field. I will go on if it takes a thousand fires; ''and with 
this remark he sat down on the grass. Foster declined 
another fire. He was the challenged party, and felt no 
bitterness against his antagonist. Therefore he was not 
anxious for blood. His honor had been sustained as 
the challenged party. Shots had been exchanged, and 
that was all ihat was necessary. Barnard went to talk 
with Edwards, who was heard to say: '' I have adm^itted 
as much as I can do — have received no satisfaction to take 
with me.'' After the interchange of a few words, Edwards 
concluded to make the thing up. He approached Foster 
and shook hands. There was mutual congratulation all 
round, and it was interesting to see the brotherly love dis- 
played by the men, who two minutes before, had faced 
each other with death in their eyes. The genial Boui^on 
was produced, and the agreeable termination to the altair 
toasted. A short time was spent on the grass m mutual 
explanation, and everything was forgotten and forgiven. 
The parties then returned to their hacks, one shaping 
toward Beloit and the other to Rockford, which place 
they left in the evening, but for what point the reporter 
failed to ascertain. 

Apprehending a possible fatal result, Major Edwards 
wrote the following note to his friend. Dr. Morrison Mun- 
ford, who was present. It was written at the Tremont 
House, Chicago, and bears no date, and written in pencil 
on" a leaf torn from a note-book which he carried in his 
pocket. The note needs no comment— it carries ^ts own : 

Dear Morry: A little farewell I want to speak to you. 
I have but three thoughts: my wife, my two children. 
When you can help my wife in her pride— help her. it 
aint much— only it is so much to me. Your fi-iend, 

J. N. Edwards. 

This note is a revelation of the character of the rela- 
tions between these two men, and shows how implicity he 
relied upon the loyalty and steadfastness of Dr. Munford's 
friendship— the one man of all others upon whom he called 
in his supposed extremity. John Edwards knew the man 
he calls '^ Dear Morry " as perhaps no other man did, and 



24 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

he trusted him. And now, the "little ftireweir^ has been 
spoken, and the memory of a brave soul is left to men. 

JOLRNALIST AND AUTHOR. 

After his withdrawal from the St. Louis Times he 
started to Santa Fe, to engage in sheep-raising, but visiting 
Dover to malie his farewells, he was dissuaded from the 
undertaking, and remained at the home of his wife's father. 
Judge J. S. Plattenburg, and wrote the "Noted Guer- 
rillas,"' a wonderful record of the border warfare. Subse- 
quently he went to Sedalia, taking editorial charge of the 
Democrat. Eetiring from this paper he started the Des- 
patch, which had a brief, but singularly brilliant career. 
He was then called to the editorial management of ihe St. 
Joseph Gazette, by the late Col. J. N. Burnes, the owner 
of the paper. Again, in 1887, he was recalled to the edit- 
orial chair of the Kansas City Times , which place he held 
at the time of his death. One needs but to read the 
numerous press tributes to know how exceedingly brilliant 
his editorial career has been. His style, bright and full of 
poetic forms, was forceful, vigorous and convincing; as 
flashing and as keen as the scimiter of Saladdin. Many of 
the passages in this book bear critical comparison with the 
most beautiful passages of classic English. The exuber- 
ance of expression and prodigality of beautiful words in 
the compositions of Major Edwards have occasionally led 
men to overlook or underestimate the more solid aspects of 
his mind. His historical and general knowledge was very 
great; his familiarity with the best specimens of Classic 
English in both prose and poetry was something wonderful 
in both accuracy and comprehensiveness. The opportuni- 
ties of a student's life were never within his reach, and yet 
he knew vastly more of books than most men who had been 
patient toilers over their pages through continuous years. 
To the ordinary mind it was wholly inexplicable, how or 
when he obtained such stores of rich and varied knowl- 
edge. His work was a remarkable blending of fact and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 

fancy, of cogent reasoning and vivid poetic expression. 
A rare combination of powers. There are many grad- 
grinds, but few poets to clothe the hard facts of life in the 
aureole of imperishable beauty. The words necessary to 
describe fitly the dauntless courage, the greatness of soul, 
the tenderness surpassing that of woman, characterizing 
the life of John Edwards, would, to those who little knew 
him, seem fulsome and extravagant. But not so to his 
friends who knew him. Some of the virtues of Major Ed- 
wards were so intense in their expression as to seem 
almost weaknesses. He never talked of himself. There 
was not a single shred of the braggart in his nature. He 
was reticent of his own deeds to the verge of eccentricity. 
He seemed to be wholly unambitious, free, even from a 
suspicion of egotism. A strongly marked instance of this 
is shown in the fact in three books of which he is the 
real hero, not once is illusion made to himself. I fully 
agree with his devoted friend. Dr. Munford, that such a 
repression of self, under such circumstances, is simply 
without a parallel. I have known but one other man well, 
in Missouri, who even nearly equaled the modesty,* the 
unselfish self-forgetfulness of John Edwards. That man 
was the prince of orators, whose soldiery skill wrote his 
name beside that of Xenophon, viz. : Gen. A. W. Doniphan. 
For all meretricious methods, for every form of pretense, 
for merely dramatic effect, John Edwards entertained the 
harshest scorn. Sham and cant that sniveled, stirred his 
gentle nature into holiest and hottest wrath, and he wove 
around its victim the network of scathing lampoon that 
burned like the shirt of Ness us. Trickery, deceit and 
cowardice alone made him pitiless. That he was unselfish 
is clearly manifested in this fact, that his great influence) 
and surely no single man in all the State had so large a 
personal following whose devotion was a passion, was 
never employed to advance his own financial interest or to 
win place for himself. His influence was always for his 
friends. The witnesses are everywhere, in every walk of 
life. Men in high places, and low alike, bear testimony 
to his unselfish work for every comer. He showed me once 



26 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARD.^ 

a letter from a poor Irishman, asking liis assistance to pro- 
cure a position on the police force of St. Louis, and it was 
granted as readily as to a seeker ol the highest place and 
power. Of his carelessness of self-advancement and his 
unceasing thought of other people, this circumstance is 
recalled. He, the writer, and an old soldier, grim and 
gray, in stature a very son of Anak, stood together. These 
two men had ridden into battle as joyously as the groom 
seeks his bride. And now in the days of peace, the griz- 
zled soldier asks: '^ John, wouldn't you make a good gov- 
ernor?" Promptly the answer came: ^^ No, but I know 
who would." The swart grenadier asks: ''Who?'' It is 
not needful to give the party named, beyond this: that he 
represented his district in Congress, and wore for years 
stainlessly the judicial ermine of his State. I reconsider, 
and give the name of Elijah Norton, the able jurist, the 
distinguished publicist and reproachless gentleman. 



HIS DEATH. 

Major Edwards was ill as early as the Wednesday prior 
to his death, but his demise at last was sudden and unex- 
pected by his friends. The immediate cause of his death 
was inanition of the cardiac nerves. In the morning early 
he read part of a late paper. No one witnessed his death, 
but Thomas, a colored servant, and his little daughter 
Laura, aged eight 3''ears. His sons were at St. Mary's Col- 
lege, Kansas, and Mrs. Edwards, worn out from loss of rest, 
had retired to another room. He seemed to have some 
premonition that the end was near, as three different times 
he asked Thomas to call Mrs. Edwards. The boy not 
realizing the Major's condition, said, ''no let Mrs. 
Edwards rest." The child was playing with a bubble-pipe, 
and about ten minutes before death he blew a bubble, and 
said ''Laura, always remember that papa bought you that 
pipe" evidently from this he knew the end had come. 
The little girl stood by the bedside wiping the chill death 
dew from her father's brow, as his soul took its mysterious 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 27 

flight to that ''bourne whence no traveler returns." 
Mrs. Edwards and Major Bittinger entered the room 
together, just as life's bound was reached. Soon it was 
noised abroad, and produced a profound sensation in all 
parts of the city. Says one: 

The news soon spread throughout the city, and there 
was universal expression of profound sorrow. Major 
Edwards had been a frequent visitor to the capital, attend- 
ing all the sessions of the Legislature for the past eighteen 
years, and all Democratic conventions held during that 
time. He was known to a majority of the members of the 
General Assembly, to the State officials and to the people 
generally. As soon as his death was announced, groups of 
men could be seen on the principal streets, discussing the sad 
event, and at the capitol half of the members of the Sen- 
ate and House at once left their seats and gathered in the 
lobby and adjoining rooms. Republicans and Democrats 
alike expressed the deepest sorrow for his sudden and 
untimely death, and the highest sympathy for his bereaved 
family. During the recess at noon nothing else was 
talked about among the crowds at the various hotels but 
the death of the brilliant journalist. 

RESOLUTIONS OF KESPECT. 

At the afternoon session of the Senate, Senator 
McGrath, of St. Louis, offered the following resolution: 

Whereas, The Senate of Missouri, with profound regret, have 
learned of the death of one of Missouri's greatest and most distin- 
guished citizens, Major John N. Edwards; therefore, he it 

Resolved, That in respect to his memory the Senate now 
adjourn. 

x\fter a few appropriate remarks by Senator Moran, of 
St. Joseph, the resolution was unanimously adopted and 
the Senate adjourned. In the House, Hon. Lysander A. 
Thompson, of Macon, offered a similar resolution, which 
was unanimously adopted and the House adjourned. This 
evening a great number of the members of the Senate 
and House visited the McCarty House to take a last look 
at the features of the dead journalist. 

In addition to the action of the Senate and House of 
Representatives as a mark of respect to the memory of the 
dead journalist, the local newspaper men and newspaper 
correspondents met at the THMme office this afternoon. 



28 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Mild a committee consisting of Walter M. Monroe, of the 
Tipton TimeSy W. A. Edwards, of the St. Joseph Gazette^ 
and C. 13. Oldham, of the Jefferson City Tribune, were 
appointed to draft suitable memorial resolutions to the 
memory of the deceased journalist. The committee 
reported the following: 

Maj. John N. Edwards was born in Virginia about 
fifty-one years ago. His parents moved to Lexington, 
Mo", when he was of tender age. He received a common 
school education and afterward learned the printing trade 
in an office at Lexington. At the commencement of the 
Civil War he enlisted in the Confederate army and belonged 
to Gen. Jo. 0. Shelby^s command. He was promoted 
time and again for skill and personal bravery, and won his 
military titles in the most honorable manner possible. 
He was engaged in more than fifty battles and skirmishes, 
and was severely wounded on more than one occasion. As 
the war drew to a close he followed Shelby and Price to 
Texas, and about the time peace was declared a small frag- 
ment of Shelby's command, known as the ^' Iron Brigade," 
sank the flag — the blood-stained flag which they had car- 
ried through the war — in the Rio Grande River, crossed the 
line into Mexico, and for thirteen months served in the 
French army. Later, Major Edwards returned to Missouri 
and published several books, one relating to the border 
warfare in Missouri, Texas and Arkansas, another entitled 
'* Shelby and his Men."' He soon after engaged in news- 
paper editorial work, first in St. Louis, next in Sedalia, 
then in St. Joseph and Kansas City, respectively. He was 
for a time editor of the Despatch and Times in St. Louis, 
edited the Sedalia Democrat and Despatch, later the St. 
Joseph Gazette, and at the time of his death was editor of 
the Kansas City Times. No writer in the West was better 
known than Major Edwards. He followed no man. 
Every idea he advanced was original, and every thought he 
expressed in print was copied far and wide. He had no 
superior in the neivspaper field and but few peers. He 
was honest and fearless, and never published a line in pub- 
lic prints which he did not believe to be the truth, and for 
which he would not answer personally at all times. We, 
representatives of the western press, recognize in his 
death an irreparable loss. He was brave and generous in 
war, and fearless and honest in civil life, and liberal to a 
fault — an affectionate husband and a kind father. We 
believe that his death has left a vacancy in Missouri jour- 
nalism that can never be filled. His death is a calamity 
to the press of the State. As an original writer and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 

conscientious literary man, he never had a superior. He 
was brave and magnanimous in health, and fearless and 
resigned when the final summons came. Kesolutions can 
not express our opinion of his ability and fearlessness. He 
lived the life of a patriotic American, and died the death of 
a brave, conscientious newspaper man. 

Augustine Gallagher, Kansas City Journal, president. 

W. A. Edwards, St. Joseph Gazette, secretary. 

C. B. Oldham, Tribune, chairman committee. 

Walt M. Monroe, Tipton Times. 

Walter Sander, WestMche Post. 

John Meagher, St. Louis Globe-Bemocrat, 

A. C. Lemmon, Post-Des^atcli.. 

W. M. Smith, St. Louis Republic. 

W. N. Graham, Sedalia Gazette. 

J. H. Edwards, Tribune. 

W. A. Curry, Kansas City Times. 

W. J. Cambliss, Higginsville Advance. 

John W. Jacks, Montgomery Standard. 

A. A. Lesueur, Lexington Intelligencer. 

Walter Williams, Boonville Advertiser. 

Immediately on the announcement of Major Edwartls' 
death. Col. A. C. Dawes telegraphed General Manager 
Clark of the Missouri Pacific, and received a reply that he 
would place his special car at his disposal to convey the 
remains of the dead journalist and his family to Dover, 
Lafayette County, where it had been decided he should 
be buried. The pall-bearers are: ex-Governor Charles P. 
Johnson, Dr. Morrison Munford, Maj. J. L. Bittinger, 
Darwin W. Marmaduke, J. F. Merryman and Col. 
Thomas P. Hoy. 

Captain Lesueur, Secretary of State, gives the follow- 
ing account of the journey from Jefferson City to Dover: 



THE FUNERAL JOURNEY. 

The death of Maj John N. Edwards, from heart dis- 
ease, took place at the McCarty House, in Jefferson City, 
at 9:40 A. M., Saturday, May 4th. It is not too much to 
say that it created a profound sensation throughout the 
city. No man in Missouri was so well known as he to its 
public men. In Jefferson City he was known by every- 



30 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

body, and his friends were numbered by the limit of his 
acquaintance. Republicans as well as Democrats were his 
warm admirers, and the humblest negro that knew him 
loved him. 

It is safe to say that no funeral that has occurred at 
Dover for many years has created a more profound impres- 
sion upon the public mind than did that of Major Ed- 
wards. There he learned to know his beloved commander. 
Gen. Joseph 0. Shelby, and many of the brave and 
daring soldier boys whose firmness in battle and endur- 
ance on the march gained for the old brigade that 
renown which he afterward immortalized in most poetic 
prose. There, too, he wooed and won his bride, a fair, 
gray-eyed Southern lassie, as full of impulse and romance 
as himself, a woman of ideals and poesy perhaps, but a 
brave and true-hearted woman who stood by him always, 
in weal and in woe, in joy and affliction, and was ever his 
ministering angel, his comfort and his solace. 0, yes, 
Dover had many ties upon the heart of Major Edwards, 
and to the good people of the vicinity, a steady, God-fear- 
ing people, but a people of leisure, who read and preserve 
a touch of the romance of the days of Coeur de Lion, of 
Bruce and of McGregor, John Ed wards was the embodiment 
of all that was chivalric and poetic. They ever followed 
from journal to journal his gifted pen, and he was nearer 
and dearer to them than he was to many with whom he 
came in daily contact outsin the busy, active world. And 
they were there to put all that was mortal of him away in 
its last resting place with their own loving hands. Their 
wives and daughters were there, too, to add their tears to 
those of the stricken wife and children. As the numerous 
assemblage encircled the grave, grief and sorrow written 
upon every face, thescene was one to immortalize the painter 
who could have seized it and put it on canvas. There was 
the evidence of an unusual depth of feeling and regret 
even for such an occasion. 

From the moment of his death until his remains were 
taken from the train, there was a constant stream of sad 
and sorrowing friends passing in and out of the corridor, 
all intent upon hearing the particulars of his dying hours, 
upon looking just once more at his familiar features, upon 
expressing grief at his loss and of sympathy with his be- 
reaved wife and children. At 12:30 on Sunday the funeral 
procession formed at the hotel to go to the depot, 
where the train was waiting. First, came a long line of 
gentlemen on foot, led by Governor Francis, and com- 
posed of senators, members of the house of representa- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 31 

tives, and many others. By the side of the hearse were 
the pall-bearers — Dr. Morrison Munford, Col. D. W. Mar- 
maduke, Hon. J. Frank Merriman, Maj. John L. Bit- 
tinger, Col. T. P. Hoy and Capt. A. A. Lesueur ; after 
them came the family and other friends in carriages. At 
Tipton a special train furnished by the courtesy of S. H. 
Clark, Esq., at the request of Col. A. C. Dawes, awaited 
the funeral party, which was composed of Mrs. Edwards, 
Miss Ella McCarty, her near friend, all of the pall- 
bearers (except Col. Marmaduke), Rev. Peter Trone, and 
Messrs. George and Walter Plattenburg. At Boonville 
they were joined by Hon. Thomas Cranmer, and at Mar- 
shall by Elder George Plattenburg and Mr. Yerbey. The 
train reached the Dover depot at about 6:30 p. m., where 
it was met by a number of the citizens of the place, and 
by the following named gentlemen, who acl^d as actual 
pall-bearers : John Allen Harwood, E. S. Van Anglen, 
Dr. E. R. Meng, R. T. Koontz, James F.Winn and George 
B. Gordon. Tlie casket was deposited at the Plattenburg 
mansion, Mrs. Edwards^ girlhood home, until 10 o^clock 
the next morning, when the burial took place in the vil- 
lage cemetery. The whole country-side had turned out. 

The train arrived as above, at Dover, 6:40 p. m. Sun- 
day, May 5th. The following day, May 6th, he was borne 
to his last resting place. The burial is thus described by 
the Kansas City Times, the paper he started, and at whose 
helm he gallantly and dauntlessly stood through many a 
storm: 

THE LAST SLEEP. 

[Special to the Kansas City Times.'] 
HiGGiNSViLLE, Mo., May 6th. — In the old cemetery, 
just at the outskirts of the little town of Dover, ten miles 
from here, the body of John N. Edwards was buried this 
morning. It is a quiet, secluded spot, where the rumble 
of wagon wheels in the road near by are the only sounds, 
save the singing of birds, heard from one year's end to 
the other— just the place where one with Mafor Edwards' 
love of nature and the beautiful would desire to lie in his 
last long sleep. And it was his wish, frequently expressed, 
that he should be buried there. It is within easy view from 
the old Plattenburg homestead, where his wife spent Iut 
girlhood and he wooed and. won her, and from which his 
body was carried to its last resting place this moring. Froia 



32 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

the windows the tombstones which mark the graves of the 
former residents of Dover are plainly visible. The whole 
scene is a pretty rural one, the scattering houses of Dover 
giving it just enough of an urban aspect to soften its out- 
lines without destrojdng its primitive beauty. It was no 
wonder that one with the poetic temiierament and chival- 
rous ideals of Major Edwards should choose the old Dover 
cemetery as his burial place, even if his early days had not 
endeared it to him. 

The special train — which was kindly furnished by the 
Missouri Pacific — bearing the body, the wife and little 
daughter of Major Edwards, the pa'll-bearers and friends, 
arrived at Dover from Jefferson City, Sunday night at 6:40. 
The pall-bearers were Maj. John L. Bittinger of St. 
Joseph; Dr. Morrison Munford, Hon. J. F. Merryman, Rev. 
Peter Trone bf Clinton; Col. T. P. Hoy and Secretary of 
State A. A. Lesueur. Miss Ella McCarty of Jefferson City; 
Messrs. George and Walter Plattenburg of Kansas City; 
brothers of Mrs. Edwards, and Mr. Thomas Cranmer, 
sheriff of Cooper County, were among the party that came 
from Jefferson City. 

The body was at once taken from the station to the 
residence of Mrs. L. C. Plattenburg, Mrs. Edward's 
mother. 

THE LAST SAD LOOli. 

At 8:30 this morning the casket was opened, and the 
citizens of Dover and the people from the country for 
miles around, filed in to take a last 'look at the face which 
was loved throughout the length and breadth of Lafayette 
County, where he passed his early life, and from which ho 
went to make a name that was honored and loved where- 
ever it was known. Moist eyes of strong men gave evi- 
dence of the sincere affection with which the dead soldier 
and journalist had been regarded. Many of the men who 
passed had seen him go out to battle in the pride of his 
youthful strength, and they said that after many years 
the face was not changed as much as might have been 
expected. The features were^ life-like and the expression 
peaceful. ^' He looks as if he were sleeping," many 
remarked. 

The greater part of the five or six hundred people who 
viewed the cor2")se came from Lexington, Higginsville, Cor- 
der and the neighboring towns. There had been a mis- 
understanding as to the time the funeral would take place, 
and many persons from IHgginsville, Corder and other 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 33 

places had driven over Sunday. This and the comparative 
inaccessibility of Dover kept many persons away who had 
desired to be present. Nevertheless the little town could 
not have accommodated many more strangers. 

There were no services at the house. At 10 o'clock 
the casket was closed. In addition to the pall-bearers 
who had accompanied the body from Jefferson City, Mr. 
John Allen Harwood, E. S. Van Anglen, E. R. Meng, 
11. I. Koontz, James F. Winn, and George B. Gordon of 
Dover, had been selected. The}" carried the casket to the 
liearse, which had been sent from Lexington. Besides" 
Mrs. Edwards and her two sons and daughter, the mem- 
bers of the family who were present were J. Q. Platten- 
burg, H. W. Plattenburg, H. Y. Plattenburg, George 
Plattenburg, and W. L. Plattenburg, brothers of Mrs. 
Edwards ; Mrs. L. 0. Plattenburg, her mother and Miss 
Eula Plattenburg, her sister. Mrs. Thomas Yerby, with 
whom Major Edwards lived when he was a boy, and learned 
to set type, also followed the body to the grave. Mr. Wiley 
0. Cox, of Kansas City, was in one of the carriages. The 
procession was a long one, but the distance from the house 
to the cemetery was short. 



THE PREACHER'S TRIBUTE. 

The services at the grave were simple, as Major 
Edwards had wished them to be. They were conducted 
bv Rev. George Plattenburg, a cousin of Mrs Edwards. 
Jle spoke feelingly and every word was listened to intently. 
His address was substantially as follows : 

Twenty-eight years ago, when General Shelby was the 
captain of a single company, composed largely of the 
flower of the youth of this immediate vicinity. Major 
Edwards came to my home in Little Rock, Arkansas, 
accompanied by Yandell Blackwell, a soldier and gentle- 
man from spur to plum.e. From that day to this my 
intercourse with Major Edwards has been of a most inti- 
mate character. I have never met a more rarely gifted or 
nobler man. His knowledge of men and books was sim- 
ply wonderful. When and how he gained this great and 
varied knowledge was to me, a close student of books for 
more than forty years, still more wonderful, engaged as he 
was continuously in great active interests, and involved in 
the stress of vast political contests. A great journal of 
yesterday morning spoke of him as only a poet. If by this 



34 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

was meant that he was only a maker of rhythmic phrases, 
or the f ramer of melodious sentences, the statement was 
se-arcely just. Ilis was the wonderful and acute insight of 
the true j^oetic faculty into the great problems of human 
life and action and destiny — the faculty that intuitively 
})enetrates the reason of things. In this sense he was a 
poet. These tilings lie clotlied in the poet^s glowing words, 
in striking and ofttimes surprisingly beautiful forms of 
speech. In his best moods he threw off passages of rare 
charm, not surpassed, if equaled, anywhere in the vast 
field of American journalism. 

It was not the splendor of his intellect, the marvelous 
grace of his diction, or the uncqualed mastery of scintil- 
lant and forceful words, that bound John Edwards to his 
friends, but his greatness of heart, his sweet, gentle and 
unselfish nature. In a long intercourse with men of all 
ranks and conditions, professions and trades, I have met 
no man so free from all ignoble and selfish impulses. His 
wide influence was never used for his own gain or personal 
advancement, but always for that of others. Those debtor 
to John Edwards in this regard may be counted by hun- 
dreds. A journalist, and now a 'State official said to me 
years ago/Mie asks for himself, never; for others, alM^ays/' 
A great, loyal, loving and unselfish heart was his. God 
rarely makes a man like him. Fitly might the Recording 
Angel write of him, Abou Ben Adhem's prayer, *' write 
me as one that loves his fellow men."' 

Whatever the infirmities of gentle and gifted John 
Edwards, there was in him a strong religious sentiment. 
I do not mean religious as defined by books, or asformulated 
in creeds, but in the acceptance and reverent holding of 
those great truths that lie behind all formulated systems 
and of which organized religions are the product. That 
Infinite Being, forming the primary religious concept of 
primitive peoples, the Jehovah of the Hebrew records, the 
'^Heaven-Father '" of the Vedic hymns, which Max Mul- 
ler says formed humanity's first poem and first artic- 
ulate prayer, and as exalted by the great Master in that 
universal praj^er : ''Our Father who art in Heaven,'' he 
recognized and looked up to with the trust of a child. In 
addition to this as a necessary sequence, he accepted unfal- 
teringly the doctrine of the soul's immortality as the sole 
basis of a hope that can gladden and sweeten the labor of 
stricken men. Once as I sat by his bedside at the McCarty 
House, late in the night, turning suddenly to me after a 
lull in our talk, he asked : '' Do you ever go down to the 
great river that flows near your home, and sitting beneath 



BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 

the midnight stars listen to the solemn swish of the on- 
sweeping mysterious stream, and think of the vast things 
that lie beyond the river and beyond the stars?'' From this 
we drifted into a discussion of the largest problems with 
which the soul has to do ; the questions of action and 
destiny. Then, more than ever before or ^fter, John 
Edwards revealed to me the secrets of his immost life. He 
felt as the Laureate sings : 

My own dim-life should teach me this. 

That life shall live forever more, 

Else earth is darkness at the core. 
And dust and ashes ail that is. 

This round of green, this orb of flame, 

Fantastic beauty, such as lurks 

In some wild poet as he works 
Without a conscience or an aim. 

To-day, from every part of the great Southwest, the 
scarred veterans of the '^'^lost cause/' will turn with tearful 
eyes to this village graveyard, where we reverently and 
lovingly lay their old companion in arms, so brilliant in 
intellect, so noble in heart, so gentle and generous, so 
pure and chivalrous in every impulse. May the smile of 
God rest upon this village grave as a perpetual benedic- 
tion. 

In the quiet, quaint little village of Dover, whose 
people removed, *^ Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble 
strife," pursue the even tenor of their way, on a gentle 
declivity leaning to the kiss of southern suns, a sheltered, 
sequestered spot, fit place of rest after life's ^^ fitful fever," 
lies the village graveyard. Here: 

" The sacred calm that reigns around. 
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease; 
In still small accents whispering from the ground 
A grateful earnest of eternal peace." 

In this retired spot reverent hands laid all that remained 
of gifted John Edwards. The voice, that oft within the 
'^ battle's red rim," shouted, " Steady, Men," is hushed. 
The eye that flashed with steely glitter, as it saw the set- 
ting and onset of squadrons, but so gently limpid in repose, 
is closed forever. The blare of bugles, the cannon's roar, 
the rush of armed fleet and the voice of love are now alike 



36 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

unheard. The fearless soldier, the brilliant journalist, 
the loyal friend, the dreamer of sweet dreams, by his own 
request lies quietly among the village dead, apart from the 
stress of enterprise and the coldness of greed. Above the 
narrow, dreamless abode of the great heart now pulseless, 
the leaves shimmer in soft light, the fragrance of flowers 
lingers above the turf lovingly, and the sweet May stars 
distill their dews to keep the grasses green. In his own 
words, written of *' Prince ^^ John B. Magruder's lone 
Texas grave, we may say, '^ If roses are the tear drops of 
angels as the beautiful Arab belief puts forth in poetry, 
then is this lowly mound a hallowed spot, and needs not 
the sculptured stone, the fretted column and the obelisk. " 
Few men have been so admired, or so mourned. At his 
grave, old, scarred soldiers, unused to tears wept like girls. 
Friends, kindred, his children grieved, but a larger grief 
was hers, whom he wooed and won with knightly devotion 
in the summer days long ago. She, sitting within the 
mysterious shadow of the ^' Spheral Change, by men called 
death,'^ can only sing with Dante Eossetti, in mournful 
questioning: 

" O nearest, furthest! Can there be 
At length some hard-earned, heart-won home, 
Where exile changed for sanctuary. 
Our lot may fill indeed its sum, 
And you may wait and I may come." 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP, 

BV MORRISON MUNFORD. 



In September, 1868, 1 came over from Seneca, Kansas, 
where I had been sojourning on business,f or a visit to Kansas 
City, the then questionable metropolis of the Missouri 
Valley. I stopped at the Sheridan Hotel, the first-class 
hostelry of the town. After supper I went by devious 
ways without sidewalks to the Times office. I v/as in search of 
Col. John C. Moore, a cousin, and the only man I knew 
within the city limits. I found him in his den, the auto- 
cratic editor of the Times, on the second story of what is 
now 813 Main street, opposite the present Times office. 
He welcomed me as one disfranchised Confederate would 
another in those days, and during the evening introduced 
me to some of his associates and visitors. Among the latter 
I recollect Major Wholegan, Colonel Grafton and Colonel 
Branch. Later on he made me acquainted with a man 
apparently of about my own age, who came in with some 
matter which he submitted, and who was mentioned to me as 
Major Edwards, of Shelby's command, and associate editor 
of the Times. It happened that his work was about over 
for the night, and an hour's conversation was the result of 
our introduction. That hour's talk with John Edwards 
that night made an indelible impression upon my mind. 
It was in the midst of the Seymour and Blair campaign, 
and politics was at fever heat. I had come down from 
intolerant Kansas, where an ex-Confederate soldier barely 
had the right of existence. I wanted consolation and 
comfort, and I got both from John Edwards that Septem- 
ber night in 1868. 

This was our first acquaintance, which was renewed, 
37 



38 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

from time to time, until my removal to Kansas City in 
May, 18G9, soon after which we became room-mates, and 
so continued until we sought other partners for life. 

The memory of my bachelor days twenty years ago, 
with John Edwards as my chum, lingers as a sweet 
unction. I was then in a business that required no night 
work, but nearly every night would find me seeking the 
Times office, and together, after the paper had gone to 
press, we v/ould wander homeward to our bachelor quarters. 
The communings w^e then had, the confidences we 
mutually bestowed, the castles in the air we then built 
are all, all a glorious recollection. The friendship then 
established between us continued unbroken to the day of 
his death. 

In 1871 I became manager of the Times, with John N. 
Edwards as editor. This relation lasted for some three 
years, and never was one more congenial and satisfactory. 
Then, against my positive judgment and advice he went 
to St Louis on the Tiines with Stilson Hutchins, who 
aspired to be the dictator of Missouri politics. The 
golden promises held out to John Edwards turned to 
worse than ashes, and his consecutive drifting from point 
to point in new ventures in Missouri journalism was the 
consequence. 

During these many years I had personally, and by 
letters, advised and entreated him to return to his first 
love, telling him there was always a place for him on the 
Times stall. In the fall of 1886 he wrote me from St. 
Joseph that he would come, and in January, 1887, he came. 
His contributions since then to the Times need no men- 
tion at my hands. Treating every topic, political, social, 
scientific, historical, literary, whatever he touched bore 
evidence of his splendid genius. What he did in these 
last years of his life as it appears on the surface — in his 
writings — is known to the world, but how much of effort 
and endeavor, of strife and contention he had to endure, 
and the fierce contest he waged against his only enemy 
day and night, no one can know, except those who 
knew him as I intimately knew him during these later 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 39 

years, and who had so much to do with the efforts made to 
disenthrall him. And I have thought that perhaps I 
could do no more just, kind or brotherly act to his 
memory than to give to the world in his own words — 
extracts firom his letters to me — an insight into this phase 
of his character. They show, it is true, his weakness and 
irresolution but they also show his noble impulses and his 
heroic struggles to overthrow his enemy — ^^the monster 
of drink. '^ 

Soon after his arrival he wrote me as follows : 

Kan-sas City, January 2C, 1887. 

I have agreed upon a house, and I want to bring what 
I have into it instantly. 1 want to get to work and buckle 
down to business instantly. Work now is my salvation. I 
do not care how hard it is, but I want not only to paralyze 
the tiger but also to kill him. 

What I want to do is for you to put me upon my honor, 
and deal with me in a business way. Our personal friend- 
ship is another matter. 

You can trust me in all the future about drinking. 
My honor is pledged to your nobleness of character. 

The return of Major Edwards to Kansas City to take a 
permanent position on the Times was soon made the 
occasion for a matter of social rejoicing and convivialities, 
by unwise and indiscreet '' friends," the result of which 
left him in a deplorable condition, from which he 
barely escaped with life, and his enemy soon seemed to 
have a spell upon him that no ordinary methods could 
break. After trying in vain the unavailing efforts of the 
good sisters of the hospital, and the influences and 
restraints of my own house for several months, I concluded, 
with the written sanction of his wife, to try a more heroic 
remedy, to put him under treatment of Dr. Keeley and 
his celebrated Gold Cure, at D wight. 111. The Major had 
always expressed the utmost abhorrence against going to 
an inebriate asylum, or even a sanitarium where there was 
physical restraint, but as this v/as nothing of the kind I 
thought it the best place I knew of for the experiment, 
both from hearsay and also from a letter of inquiry to 
which the following was a reply: 



40 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

DwiGHT, March 17, 1887. 
Dear Sir: I do not know that I can tell you anything 
about our cure for the liquor habit that you do not know, 
but for the benefit of the gentleman, I will say, that a 
patient here is put upon our Gold-graded treatment, a 
plan much after that of Pasteur, for hydrophobia (with- 
out the inoculation). His bottles are numbered from one 
to six, and are taken in their order. There is no shock or 
pain in the transition period, from the effects of a spree 
to comj)lete sobriety. From three to nine days after com- 
mencing the remedy all want and desire for alcoholic 
stimulants of any kind will be entirely eradicated — the 
words, *^want and desire,^' in their broadest and most 
intensive sense. I do not deny the patient liquor while 
under treatment. 

It was concluded to try the experiment and so after 
many comical as well as sorrowful experiences on the trip, 
we arrived at Dwight on the morning of March 21, 1887, 
and he was duly installed for treatment. I left him that 
night, going on to Chicago, from which place I wrote him 
the most powerful and appealing, yet at the same time 
firm and admonishing letter, that a friendship such as ours 
could inspire. On my return home I received an eight- 
page letter, which in his agate or pearl manuscript would 
make about double that number of ordinary writing. Al- 
ready the gold cure had begun to have its first effects, and 
his mind seemed to be clearing rapidly. He wrote con- 
cerning a dozen matters, but I eliminate in this article 
all from this and subsequent letters excej)t the portions 
pertaining to his struggle against ^Hhe monster of drink" 
and our efforts to save him. 



EXTRACTS FROM MAJOR EDWARDS' LETTERS. 

Dwight, March 25, 1887. 

My Dear Morry : I have received your letter from 
Chicago. It is very true in many things. Very strange 
in some others. Very unnecessary in a few. 

That I was a fool on the trip here — oh, such a fool — 
I will admit. Do you think I have not suffered for 
my madness? That I still do not suffer? That, if by 
way of expiation I could recall the shame and mortifica- 



TWENTY YEARS OF FIIIENDSHIP. 41 

tion I caused your wife, I would joyfully put my right 
hand in the flames until 

"It grew fiery red 
Like Cramner's at the stake." 

What a transformation she must have witnessed in 
me ! You know that when I have been sober and traveled 
with you no man ever sat in a car more modest, circum- 
spect and dignified. And then to see that other beast of 
last Sunday and Monday! 

* * * The picture you draw of the sufferings of my 
wife and children is as true as God is true. It is the 
knowledge of this fact that has put me in a living hell for 
the past five years, for during this -time my drinking has 
been deeper, longer and deadlier than ever before. How 
I have yearned to break with the monster of drink, fam- 
ishing days and horrible midnights, if they would but 
speak, would all too truly tell you. Days with a con- 
science that was as a human appetite, feeding, as it were, 
upon a living soul, if this could speak it also would all 
too truly tell you. Separated from whisky, if there is a 
truer, kinder, tenderer husband and father, I do not know 
him. Then why do I drink? Omniscience knows. It is 
not for a want of physical courage, for no one has ever 
doubted that. Not for a want of moral courage, for once 
at the side of a friend, I could defy public opinion with 
an infinite scorn, and go with him into utter darkness. 
Ah! one day Ave shall know it all. Yes, one day we shall 
know it all ! 

Now, a few words Just here in regard to yourself and 
our relationships together. Have you ever doubted for a 
moment that I did not understand why you loved me, and 
why you have stood by me through drunkenness, neglect 
of duty, and, at times, absolute desertion? Have I not 
told you, and said to you, and written to you over and 
over again that I was no more necessary to the life of the 
Times, or to its future growth, position, or prosperity, 
than the man in the moon? No man has ever dared yet 
to tell me that your friendship was merely mercenary, or 
that you only wanted me because I might be utilized in 
some bare pecuniary sense. I knew that we ought to get 
together again. That, as it were, we supplemented one 
another. That I had some qualities which you did not 
possess, and you many that I did not. That we were so 
congenial in so many things, and knew so well how to do 
so many things in common. That allied, we could con- 
quer fate; that Joined with you, and being guided by 



43 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

you, and going with 3'ou hand in hand, you could put me 
beyond want in my old days, and some other day take me 
out of the shafts of a dray horse. This is what I knew, 
and this is what I have always proclaimed from the house- 
tops. 

Suppose silly lies have been told as to our relation- 
ships and the reasons given by some malignant devils, who 
hate us both, why you have taken me drunk from hotels, 
paid my bills, sent me to hospitals to save me, and stood 
by me almost to a funeral ? Isn't God's blessed sunshine 
in our hearts for each other, and God's blessed sunshine 
all about us to make glorious and luminous in our lives 
those phxces made perfect forever where our devotion 
began and lingered at, and dwelt upon these twenty years 
and more ? Doesn't my wife know it ? Haven't we talked 
it all over a thousand times ? Let us dispose of this thing 
now and forever. Whatever else happens in this world — 
and if the time ever does come when we have to take our 
ways apart, we will go away with not as much shadow of 
a cloud betwixt us as would fleck even the grasses or the 
flowers upon a baby's grave. 

* * * As to my situation here, it is about this : 
Keeley has been very kind. I have taken his medicine as 
prescribed. I have no more desire to drink than if whisky 
were prussic acid. There is a bottle now before me sent 
here by him he says especially to tempt me. Since Tues- 
day night last I have abhorred liquor in every shape. I do 
not understand it at all. He has invited me to drink 
several times, and keeps a very fine article always in his 
office. I pulled the cork out of the bottle in my room and 
smelt the whisky. It was positively loathsome. I shall send 
forward after to-day bushels of editorial. * * * Please 
send word to my wife that I am all right. I have not had 
the heart to write to her since being here. There are 
times when even I will not commit sacrilege. 
Your friend as ever. 



^< ^(j CcC^vo^^- 



I give some other extracts by date which tell their own 
story without comment: 

DwiCxilT, March 30, 1887. 
* * * A week ago yesterday, Tuesday, I took my last 
drink. There is a bottle now standing upon a table in the 
room. I hate it. It has been standing there since yesterday 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 43 

week. I see it the first thing in the morning and the last 
thing at night. I do not understand anything about it. 
All I know is that the very thought of liquor makes me 
sick. I am as well as I ever was in my life. I walk about 
five miles a day, eat everything, and pour editorials in on 
you by every mail. I have done some good' writing, if I 
do say it myself. 

DwiGHT, March 30, 1887. 

Since I wrote to you this morning I have received your 
very kind and welcome letter. It did me a power of good. 

Have no fear of me. I will stick to a funeral. If it is 
three weeks, then it is three weeks. I was never better, 
physically in all my life, and, as I told you this morning, 
I hate even the smell of liquor. I feel and believe that 1 
am saved. In fact I hnoiu it. 

DwiGHT, April 1, 1887. 
I am as well as I ever was in my life, and hate liquor 
more and more every day. I could take the medicine just 
as well at home as here, but if it is three weeks then it is 
three weeks. Don^t rely on a word I say, but write to 
Keeley. I find him an exceedingly strong man in his 
profession, and possessed of a vast erudition. I can not 
fathom his medicine, however, nor do I know one thing 
about its therapeutic effect. I only know that it kills 
whisky like a ferret kills a rat. 

DwiGHT, April 2, 1887. 
I received your letter of the 31st this morning. I am 
in spleiidid health, still hate liquor, and feel that I shall 
never touch it again. That is all I know about it. I just 
know that I hate the very smell of it. I will stay the 
twenty-one days gladly, although I believe fully that the 
appetite is broken up, root and branch. 

DwiGHT, April 4, 1887. 
A week from to-day I will have been here twenty-one 
days. Then I shall start back. Still the same feeling in 
regard to whisky. I have no more desire for it than for 
prussic acid. More than that, I do not even think of it. 
The bottle is still on the table in my room, uncorked and 
unnoticed. Not for ten years have I been free from a 
constant desire for alcohol in some shape until I came 
here. Of late years that desire had become almost second 
nature, the appetite becoming stronger and stronger with 
each spree. Now it is totally eradicated. How it passed 
away I can not say. There was no effort on my part, no 
struggle of any kind. The usual horrible depression was 



44 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

totally absent. Dr. Keeley offered me liquor over and 
over again — indeed, he really tried to tempt me to drink, 
but the very thought of drinking made me sick. I do 
not explain anything. I can not explain anything con- 
nected with the medicine any more than I can explain the 
immortality of the soul. In a physical sense. I only know 
that I do not want to drink. , 

D WIGHT, April 5, 1887. 
I inclose you a statement of my account, up to next 
Monday, the 11th, at half past three o'clock, p. m. 
when 1 take the Denver train for Kansas City, as, I believe, 
a thoroughly cured man. You will see that I bring four 
bottles of the medicine with me. If I am cured, which mean 
life and everything to me, I will owe it solely to you. I 
see things more clearly to-day than I have seen them in 
ten years. If there is one trait in my character stronger 
than another, it is that of gratitude. If you were to ask 
me to stand by your side when the chances were a thou- 
sand to one that we would both be killed, I would stand as 
joyfully as I ever went forth to play or hunt as a boy. 
This is the physical part of my love for you. The other part 
is to show you that I am worthy of your devotion to me, 
which has been shown under circumstances that would 
have driven away from me a million of so-called friends 
and even relations. 

DwiGHT, April 6, 1887. 
I have talked with Dr. Keeley fully, freely and 
frankly. I have obeyed him in everything, and he is 
clearly of the opinion that 21 days is enough to stay here. 
He is satisfied perfectly as to the cure, and I bring four 
bottles with me. He wrote you fully to-day. If nothing 
happens I will be at home next Tuesday morning, the 1 2th. 
I am awful tired, but I am free. What a glorious thing 
is freedom. I still hate liquor with an abiding hatred. 

DwiGHT, April 7, 1887. 
I am still as I was the second day of my arrival here. 
I have not the least desire for whisky. Keeley shovrs me 
letters from all over the United States bearing testimony 
to the efficacy of his cure for both liquor and opium. It 
is astonishing. 

DwiGHT, April 9, 1887. 
I have just received your kind letter with inclosures. 
Well, next Tuesday morning 

"In other guise than forth he rode, 
Will return Lord Marmion." 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 45 

I will get off at Grand avenue. I never felt better, and 
never felt freer from all desire to drink. I am on my fifth 
bottle of gold cure. 

Dr. Keeley gpoke of having also received a letter from 
you to-day. He did not show it to me. 

Way late in the night, while I have been communing 
with the moon and the stars; I have in my walks run across 
here and there one of the Doctor's opium patients. They 
are a curious race of human beings. I go to them, hunt 
them up, and try to draw them out. One had a face like 
what I imagine a vampire ought to have. His eyes were 
scintillant. He was in an old field sitting on a stump. 
His pallor was the pallor of a corpse that had been three 
days dead. Under some sort of an occult mesmerism that 
I did not understand, I went out to him and commenced to 
talk. He raved like a madman, and fairly shrieked for me 
to go away. I went. I swear to you that I have seen that 
vampire face every night for a week since. 



DR. KEELEY'S CONFIDENCE. 

As corroborative of the confidence the Major felt I 
give some extracts from letters of Dr. Keeley: 

' DwiGHT, April 6, 1887. ^ 
• Your truly kind letter of the 3d inst. came in this 
morning and I hasten to answer it. 

I am glad to be able to tell you that I think the good 
Major entirely cured. He tells me that he has absolutely 
no thought of liquor, consequently no crave, and further 
that he has had none since the evening of the second day 
after coming. He has still in his room the last four 
ounces that I bought for him that evening, and intends 
to take it hoine to you as ^^ an earnest"' of ^^ the miracle 
God hath wrought " in his case. 

I shall be very sorry indeed when the dear Major leaves 
us, he is so companionable, or as our '' janitress" says, so 
''knowledgable." He has made friends with everybody 
with whom he has come in contact here, and many will 
share my regret in his leaving. He has been one of the 
most patient and obedient gentlemen whom I have had to 
treat, and has taken as much pains to make his treatment 
a success as his friends could wish. 

I agree with you now, that the dear gentleman is bet- 
ter worth saving than two-thirds of the patients who have 
come here. You remember you told me I would think so 



46 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

before he left. May God keep and protect him in all the 
future. 

DwiGHT, April 11, 1887. 

Our good Major left us this afternoon, and will reach 
yon before this letter. AVe are all sorry to lose him, and 
none more so than myself. May the dear Christ go with 
him, keep him and preserve him, is the wish of his many 
friends here. I think you will find a wonderful change in 
him, and I am almost persuaded that it is a permanent 
one for good. 

Dr. Keeley suggested to me when I left the Major at 
D wight that it would be a good idea to have some of his 
friends write him kind and encouraging letters to ^^ brace 
him up,^^ and I accordingly v/rote to Colonel Burnes, 
among others, which led to the passage of several letters 
between us. His letters cover the situation so fully and 
analytically and at the same time are so tender and full of 
friendship that I am tempted to give some extracts: 

COLONEL BURNES' HOPES AND FEARS. 

St. Joseph, March 26, 1887. 

Dear Dr. Munford: I am just in receipt of your pro- 
foundly interesting favor written in Chicago, and beg to 
say that with all my heart and soul I am truly grateful for 
the confidence you give me, also for the genuine spirit of 
kindness so plainly manifest. It is upon such confidences 
and kindnesses that the friendship ^* which sticketh closer 
than a brother " is safely founded, and they alone lend 
enchantment and encouragement to the daily struggles of 
life which, at best, are of brief and valueless results to 
us all. » 

Poor, dear John ! A thousand times I have realized 
that the course you have now taken was the only one that 
remained. Everything else has been tried, over and over 
again, in vain. Your whole course toward him, and this 
last action, more supremely than all your varied goodness 
and kindness to him for years before, conclusively evi- 
dences an interest in and a love for him that is God-like. 
Let us hope — but so many bitter disappointments in the 
past make me tremble at the use of the word — that this 
present step will result in his permanent restoration ; but 
as it is our last hope, let us be firm in making his stay 
long and thorough. I need scarcely add, that I will most 
fully comply with your wishes and instructions, and do 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 47 

everything in my power to aid and second your efforts. If 
I can see him to any advantage, I will visit D wight for 
the purpose, and whenever you think it best I will write 
him, with earnest exhortation, to aid by constant resolu- 
tion and effort your noble purpose to save him for the 
benefit of his family, his friends and mankind. He knows 
full well that my love for him is as strong as life, and has 
always appeared to yield something to my judgment. On 
the one accursed subject — his lamentable failing — no one 
can control him by any ordinary methods. His is a dis- 
ease beyond all question, and should be eradicated, root 
and branch. All we can now do is to soothe and nurse 
him as an infant. 

St. Joseph, April 7, 1887. 

Your valued and deeply interesting favor of the 3d 
gives me profound hope and joy. At the same time dis- 
appointment has so often followed a similar creation — 
bitter and cruel disappointment — that I venture to suggest: 
Be in no haste to recall the cherished object of our most 
affectionate solicitude from his safe and pleasant retreat. 
According to the authority in charge he has a disease. 
I have, for a long time, regarded it as a disease. It is of 
all diseases the most hypocritical. It is a disease with 
limitless cunning and all the qualities of the opossum. 
In its consequences or results are to be found there its 
triumphs. Its victim — John himself — is deceived and 
betrayed by it. It lulls him, by a vain sense of security, 
into a belief that he is capable — strong enough — to win a 
fight with it. Deceived himself, his infinite variety of 
influence, his unparalleled power over his attendants and 
friends, whose stern judgment surrendei's too soon to a 
lovable sympathy, make them easy victims of this our 
confidence and coi'diality. 

I need not — perhaps ought not to say this to you — for 
you have much more of the iron in your blood than I — 
without less of womanly tenderness ; but the resources of 
John's enemy are so infinite that it takes us all, as well as 
himself, to win even a partial victory. 

How nobly he writes to you! How nobly he writes, 
and feels and thinks ! He believes he can never fall 
again. He is amazed at his past folly. His intellectual 
perceptions are now complete and perfect, but is he free 
from his disease? God knows I hope so with all my heart; 
but after a brief treatment, even a treatment so faith- 
inspiring, do I believe as a matter of experience or 
judgment that he can now stand? Alas! do I ? Will 
it not take time — long time — time to kill, and then to 



48 • JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

eradicate, purge away the last vestige of the invidious, 
treacherous monsters that have pursued and tormented 
him so long ! 

St. Joseph, April 14, 1887. 
Your esteemed favor of the 10th just received. I am 
very thankful for your great kindness in thus advising 
me of the good news. An hundred times I have said I 
can never, alas, have any more hope, and yet I confess, 
now, it is strong again. I do again believe and trust. 
Surely we will no more suffer disappointment. You have 
done the work; it is noble and God-like. If I could envy 
such a friend and such a gentleman, as yourself, the glory 
and satisfaction fairly won, I would wish that I had been 
the savior of John Edwards as you are. But fortunately 
my happiness in the result is too perfect and complete to 
:.dmit of any base alloy. , 

I met the Major at the depot that Tuesday morning, 
April 12th, on his return from Dwight. I was there ahead 
of time, and I wondered, half in doubt, in what manner 
he would appear. The train drew up and soon I saw him 
coming along, and truly — 

"In other guise than forth he rode." 

His hearty handshake; his joyous, half silent laugh 
which always reminded me of '' Pathfinders,*'' as described 
by Cooper; his appearance, his gait, all were an occular 
demonstration of the wonderful change effected in three 
weeks. There was much rejoicing in several households, 
and among all his true friends that day, and for some 
weeks thereafter. But alas! the foreboding and misgiv- 
ing of Colonel Burnes proved only too true. The disease 
was not eradicated, and in less than a month the ^' mon- 
ster of drink " had full control again. A second experi- 
ment at Dwight was tried with substantially the same 
results as the first one. Later on, during the past year 
the virtues of Excelsior Springs were tested on two occa- 
sions with satisfactory results, which, however, did not 
prove lasting. The additional extracts below are from 
letters written while there, and also others from time to 
time until his death, all pertaining to this subject: 



TWENTY YEARS OF FllIENDSniP. 49 

MORE OF MAJOR EDWARDS' LETTERS. 

Excelsior Springs, June 20, 1888. 

Well, we got here Saturday night safe and sound. 
Saturday morning I began on the water. In an hour I 
was so sick that it seemed to me as if I could hear the 
first ten notes of the final trumpet. All day Saturday 
and Sunday night, all day Monday and Monday night I 
could not lift my head scarcely from the pillow. Tuesday 
morning I managed to crawl to a bath house; like Napo- 
leon at St. Helena, I managed to stay in one, off and on, 
for four hours. This Wednesday morning I went to work. 
I send forward four articles. 

Of course every hour here is a purgatory, with no priest 
in a thousand miles to help pray me out. All that it is 
possible for these waters to do in the way of curing 
alcoholism — all that it has ever been claimed that they 
would do — is to break the drinking gait, bring a man 
back to a realization of his sense of duty, and leave the 
balance in his own hands. Still, I will stay as long as 
you desire. 

Excelsior Springs, June 23, 1888. 

As this is the first clear day for one solid week, I have 
lived out of doors as one of the captured Apaches might 
live if suddenly from the Dry Tortugas he were carried to 
his own Madre Mountains and there set free with God and 
immensity. As five hours out of the twenty-four are all 
that I can ever sleep, whisky or no whisky, I wait for 
the darkness to do my thinking. For hours and hours, 
and far into the night, I sit by an open window and think. 
Here, I have gone over the entire political field from 
Washington City to Jefferson City. * * * 

And yet you would put me to writing ^' literary arti- 
cles."' No, no, Morry, I can not dance attendance upon — 

"Sweet Miss Fanny, of Trafalgar Square," 
While outside the bugles are singing, 

" All the Blue Bonnets are over the border." 

You also say : '' This is a sad ending to all our hopes 
and expectations."" Say, rather, their resurrection, Morry. 
There comes a time to every one of my disposition when 
he regains his second youth, or rather, second manhood. 
That period was very near to me. I had come at last to 
look my condition full in the face. I saw just what had to 
be done. I was surely providing for every friend to whom 
I owed a dollar. I was getting further and further away 
from whisky. I was getting nearer and nearer to a condi- 
tion of independence, and I saw clearer and clearer per- 



50 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

severance in mining matters was nearly equal to gold. But 
no matter all this. This will belong to some business talks 
we will have before we separate for a period which neither 
of us can now reckon accurately upon. How true a friend 
you have been to me, I will not here narrate. How 
splendidly I would have stood at your side through any 
storm, crisis, or disaster, it does not become me now to 
declare. AVherever you are I will always be glad to hear 
the story of your happiness and progress — of some triumph 
grateful in a })ersonal way, some victory won over the 
Pharisees and Philistines. 

I had better come home next Friday, I reckon. My 
pass ends next Saturday, the 30th. Further expense here 
is unnecessary. All the good the water can do has been 
done. I am free from all desire, in perfect health, can eat 
anything, digest anything, but I do not sleep. JN'or have 
I more than five hours a night for years. The fight from 
this on I must make myself, and, God willing, I intend to 
make it. 

Excelsior Sprin'gs, June 26, 1888. 

I am coming back with a renewed youth, and a deter- 
mination to show you that all your kindness to me, and 
friendship for me, and devotion to me have not been in 
vain. Morry, I will be a sober man. Our last days shall 
be our best. 

I see the town this morning, and the fog above it, and 
a great cloud bank against the sun, but, 

" My heart is far away, 
Saihng the Vesuvian bay." 

Good-bye. As the Spanish say: Astahieago — until 
we meet again. 

Kansas City, June 28, 1888. ^ 

The trip to the Springs enabled me to break my gait. 
Having fully resolved to change my whole life as far as 
whisky drinking is concerned, I only ask an opportunity 
to show you what is in me. 

Kansas City, July 20, 1888. 

God of Israel! If for two weeks I have not suli'ertd 
the tortures of the damned, then, as Sheridan said, one 
might just as well rent out hell and live in Texas. 

I have crawled from my bed, bent double with pain, 
and tried to work. The spirit was willing but the llesh 
was weak. '^^ Acute inflammation of the duodenum''^ 
was diagnosed, whatever that may be, and yet I was 
drunk, when a quart of v/hisky would have killed me. 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 51 

But no matter. One can not always eat his cake and have 
it too. 

Kan-sas City, August 27, 1888. 
I am at home working like a gopher, and taking gold 
cure within an inch of my life. This time I will anchor 
the old shi|) or wreck her. I have Keeley's later process. 

Kansas City, August 29, 1888. 

* * * In my own behalf I have not a single word to 
say. If I knew a million I would not utter one. 1 knew ifc 
had to come, sooner or later, and why not now ? And yet I 
should have triumphed. Just think of that; I should 
have triumphed. Of course I might get sick enough to 
die, and all who knew me might declare that I was on a 
spree. Such was not the case when I saw you last. Such 
has not been the case these two weeks. 

This information, however, is mere words. I sincerely 
wanted you to know the truth, so that when some snake- 
in-the-grass goes to gloating over my drunkenness, you 
can give him the lie. 

* * H: J c^Ya a political writer. It is only when I feel 
depressed or cast down, or it is dark all around, that I write 
something sad, or of pitiful episodes, or of men or women 
who sing low in the twilight: 

"By the shore of life and the gate of breath. 
There are more things waiting for men than death." 

Kansas City, January 8, 1889. 
Last Friday, January 4th, was my birthday — fifty-one 
years old. I feel like twenty-five. I went to my priest, 
laid my hand upon the crucifix, and swore to the God who 
made us all, never again to touch liquor. You laugh. 
Very well — you have good cause. Watch and wait. 

Kansas City, January 11, 1889. 

Since the cloud of liquor has been lifted, work is all 
my consolation. To save my life I can^t lie in bed over 
five hours. Often and often I get up at three in the 
morning and go to work. I can eat anything, digest 
anything, stand any amount of fatigue and exposure, but 
I can't sleep. Perhaps all this will regulate itself. 

Have you anything else for me to do by way of occu- 
pation — literature, reminiscences with all individuality 
left out, anything? I wan't more load to carry — more 
ground to plow. 

Kansas City, February 2, 1889. 

Merry, I am a curious man. So, also, are you. I swear 
to you that when I looked upon his face (Col. Burnes) in 



52 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

the coffin there, I said this to myself, '^'^Who will be 
next? Will Munford look upon the face of Edwards, or 
will Edwards look upon the face of Munford?^" 

Kansas City, March 19, 1889. 

I have nothing on earth to reproach you with. You 
have done for me what but few brothers would have done. 
I recognize the situation as fully as I recognized the over- 
throw of the Confederacy. 

I shall make one more effort. If I fail I will come to 
you — loyally, frankly and honestly, and say: *^Itis fin- 
ished. Choose some one else to do what you had a right 
to expect me to do." 

These words of John Edwards during the last two 
years of his life, from March 25, 1887, to March 19, 
1889, contain a more graphic and pathetic account of his 
unavailing struggle against his only enemy, '^the monster 
of drink," than any other pen could depict. They are at 
times disconnected and scattered over long periods, but 
the extracts given are verbatim from his letters. I doubt 
not I have mislaid or failed to preserve many others written 
during this period, which might perhaps fill up the gaps, 
but these are not necessary, the skeleton is shown, and it 
requires little imagination to fill up the interstices and 
round out the details. With such a framework, a genius 
like his could weave such a sad and pathetic story as would 
surpass in vividness DeQuincey^s ^^Confessions." 

In the many letters I have of Major Edwards — among 
them those from which the foregoing extracts are taken — 
hundreds of topics of a different character and on different 
subjects are mentioned in a manner that only he could 
touch them. Much of this is of a semi-personal nature, 
growing out of his relations toward me and his connection 
with the Times. Much relates to State and National 
politics, to individuals and events as they were presented 
at the time. All are interesting — private and not written 
for publication — therefore the more interesting to the 
public. Much contained in those letters can f^ot yet be 
published, as the comments on politicians and public men 
would be premature. In the extracts subjoined I have 
intended to include nothing that would offend any living 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP 53 

person — certainly no one in Missouri. Among the follow- 
ing will be found in full the last letter I ever received from 
him : 

LETTERS ON DIFFERENT TOPICS. 

Kaksas City, August 18, 1887. 

I saw — briefly, but had no talk. He was 

looking everywhere for you. That's a Black Prince for 
you. I had rather have him on the skirmish line alone 
than ten of Shelby's picked body guard — picked for a 

personal daring that never had an equal. , as a scout, 

is everything. Cool, quiet, dumb as a dead man when 
you need wariness; noisy as a brass band when you want 
fun, or frolic, or boisterousness; pensive as a quaker, yet 
laughing to himself at the incongruous things of a day's 
travel; impenetrable, seeing all things, hearing all things, 
knowing all things. Lord, what a line of priesthood this 
Tennessee Melchizedek might have created. 

Kansas City, August 19, 1887. 

Now, Morry, I have given you my candid opinion of 

. You could even put him on guard at the 

great gate of Jerusalem while Titus was thundering 
away on the outside. I am in no need to tell you about 
him, only this: In view of my almost immediate depart- 
ure from Kansas City, and to a country that is not blessed 
with quite so many railroads as we have, it would be a 
splendid act of political policy to put him on the paper. 
Indeed, he could do much better without me than I could 
do without him, were I back again. I know you hate 
politics, but you certainly ought to use your own paper to 
defend yourself. To fight your enemies with all modern 
weapons, and forage liberally upon the enemy, always. 

What matters how rich your newspaper is ? How 
fully it can be made to drift and drift, merely keeping its 
head to the wind. How ^^faultlessly nice, and icily dull " 
some of its features are — no matter all these things and 
more — I had rather anchor such a craft, broad-side on, 
and square up for a funeral against the whole fleet of the 
enemy, than to keep out of the fight in Missouri a single 
hour. There is the threat to drive you from the party. 
Your want of activity and aggressiveness will be miscon- 
strued. Men would call you coward who would not dare 
to face you. And so it would go. Without miners, with- 
out boring, and digging, and putting down dynamite, and 
making here a clean alliance; there a combination, and 



54 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

everywhere scouts who report daily or weekly, a campaign 
would be like the bridal meal given by the high contract- 
ing parties, 

" And what do you think they had for dinner? 
Two little fish and one little minnow!" 

can save you from all this. As God is my jiidge. 



Morry, I would not have you simply wipe out the political 
prestige of your newspaper for all the money you possess, 
now or hereafter, so I have insisted upon and do insist 

upon . Do not quit the field at the first onset. I have 

told you fifty times that no man's life was necessary to the 
Times. It will go on just the same. And just think what 
a campaign it is going to be. Eevolution everywhere. 
Unrest everywhere. Threats, passion, eager defiance 
everywhere. Try it, anyhow. In no possible way can it 
lead up to your experiment with me. 

Excelsior Springs, June 23, 1888. 

Morry, so sure as we two live to see next November, 
we will see Cleveland a beaten man. His message killed 
him. You remember the charge of the Light Brigade at 
Balaklava. A French commander, General Bosquet, was 
looking on. Asked an aide : ''What do you think of 
that, General ?" "It is magnificent, but it is not war. '^ 

If Harrison is nominated, it will be a fight for life and 
death in Indiana, with the odds all against us, and if we 
do not carry Indiana, good-bye, Grover ! We have no 
more chance of carrying a single other Western State than a 
man has of life who has been bitten by a cobra de capello. 
Wisconsin ! Wisconsin devil. Michigan ! Michigan two 
devils. Whatever else you and I may be, do not let us be 
fools. And then Connecticut and New Jersey. They 
are tariff to the core, as you and I are Confeder- 
ates. Randall, by a still hunt never before surpassed 
in A^merican politics, carried them for Cleveland. And 
his reward ? An iceberg thrust down his back, and an 
avalanche poured over his head. His corpulency can also 
be an exhausted receiver upon occasion. For the lifted 
hand of Randall no latch-string hangs out at the White 
House door. Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania, attended to 
that — a Cerberus with a single head. You know what the 
French say : "Nothing succeeds like ingratitude.'" Very 
well. We shall see. 

For Missouri now: I read Glover's interview in this 
morning's Times. As to Morehouse, he was never more 
mistaken in his life — Glover, I mean, when he intimates 



TV> SNTY YEARS OF FllIENDSHIP. 55 

that he, Morehouse, does nor know his own strength. He 
does know it to within ten votes. So far, the race is 
squarely between Francis and Morehouse. Glover hasn^t 
the ghost of a chance. He isn't even in the fight. Mind 
you; he is a thoroughbred. As I began, so will I go for- 
ward. If it is die in the ditch, then let us die like grena- 
diers of the guard, but do not let us deceive ourselves. 
His only hope on earth is in an alliance with Morehouse. 
For heaven's sake ! do not think me a pessimist. I am 
writing to you like one brother would write to another, 
and just as I would talk to you by your own fireside, and 
under the sanctity of your own roof-tree. I see the race, 
however, as I now can plainly see the sky, with the blessed 
sun shining in it. 

Excelsior Sprii^'Gs, June 26, 1888. 
. Now what ! Harrison and Morton. Remember In- 
diana, and what I told you in my letter Saturday of the 
situation there. It is desperate for the Democracy. 
McDonald is sulking in his tent like Achilles. And no 
wonder, Cleveland put the knife into him in cold blood 
and turned it in the wound. Gray is a new comer. Still 
on his garments are the mud stains of first republicanism, 
and next mugwumpery, 

Kansas City, July 9, 1888. 

I think that I should at least stay with you until the 
fight is fought. I have been sick for a week — sicker than 
you believe, or any man believes. Such is my reputa- 
tion that I can not be sick without being drunk. I have 
had a most painful and weakening dysentery — so painful 
as to prevent both eating and sleeping. All put together I 
have not drank a quart of liquor. Then I got some good 
brandy with laudanum in it, prescribed by Dr. A. B. 
Sloan. I have touched nothing in four days except this, 
and there is a third of it left yet. 

I have lost a week. Strike it out. The end will very 
soon come in politics, after the August convention. 
Then let us close the books. Every word you wrote to me 
is true to the letter. Each went into my soul. 

Old Frederick the Great — when his fortunes were at 
their very worst, and when it was fellest and blackest — 
said to a soldier running away, *'How, now, comrade?" 
^'^I am deserting old Fritz," was the answer. ''^Yon 
can neither feed me, clothe me, nor give me shoes nor 
shelter." '^ Hold on for one more battle, and if the tide 
does not turn, I promise to desert with you." 

We had better remain toa:ether for one more battle. I 



56 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

believe that I can do you some good. If I did not think 
so, and if I did not want to finally show you that I have 
some gratitude, I would never enter the Times office again 
except to say to you, '''Hail and farewell. ^^ I know my 
un worthiness. Think you not that the iron has gone into 
my flesh, cruel and corroding? 

As for pay, if I had cared more for it I had surely done 
better. But all this in passing. I am at work to-day, and 
will send down several articles. 

Kan-sas City, August 17, 1888. 

Dick Collins was married this morning at eleven 
o'clock, by the Rev. Father Lillis, of St. Patrick's church. 
His witnesses were Col. John Longdon, my wife, and 
myself. I have written his epithalamium, or his obituary, 
I do not know which. His friendship has always been so 
true to you, his devotion always so undeviating for you, 
his courage always so steadfast for you, that I ask as a 
special favor that you have published in the morning the 
marriage notice I send you. 

Of course all these high qualities are now of no longer 
availment, but for all that upon some graves there should 
always be monuments. 

Kansas City, November 7, J 888. 

As old Job once said, or as good as said, " This is 
hell.'' Recall what I once wrote you from Excelsior 
Springs ! 

Kansas City, November 8, 1888. 

What an overthrow! Four Congressmen gone from 
Missouri, and scant 5,000 plurality in the State ! As Pyrr- 
hus said: '' Another such a victory and I am ruined." 

If you and I had been prophets and the sons of pro- 
phets we could not more surely have foretold the disaster. 
They see it now, poor fools — they who wanted to put us 
to death because we pleaded almost on our knees for the 
integrity of the party of our love, our religion and our 
idolatry. 

Tarsney's election is a great card for you. By con- 
trast it shows what power the Times has when it is either 
for or against. 

I wish much that I had your philosophy. The defeat 
of Cleveland actually made me sick. 

Your special Kansas train was a master piece of busi- 
ness. Lord ! but how Kansas is joined to heridols._ Let 
the mortgages go on. One day she will shrivel up in the 
folds of her eastern anacondas as some old garment in 
flames. 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 57 

For the next month I will show you some of the best 
writing I have ever yet done. The inspiration of defeat 
has lit all my lamps again. 

Kansas City, November, 14, 1888. 

I was never more surprised in my life than when I got 
your letter of yesterday, the 13th, this morning. 

I have at this hour, and had last night, not less than 
five columns of editorial matter on Mr. Grasty^s table. 
How you could have been mistaken in this, I am at an 
utter loss to understand. The articles you will say your- 
self, are to the point and such as you would have indorsed 
in every line. 

As for depending on me, I, too, have re-organized from 
top to bottom, from Alpha to Omega. You say articles 
ahead are not journalism. No, not political journalism ; 
but every newspaper on earth has more or less literary 
matter. These are the kind of articles which should con- 
stitute the reserve. 

Kansas City% November 20, 1888. 

Since this is the hour of reconstruction, let me say a 
word or two categorically: 

1st. From this day I want you to order every Missouri 
exchange, except St. Louis, to my especial keeping. Have 
them tied up and put in your room. I will get them 
every evening myself. Then I will show you a State 
melange of which you will be proud. 

2d. There appear to be some of my editorials which 
are not acceptable. Will you please read such, make a 
two or three line memorandum on the back as to their 
deficiency, and send them back to me. In many an 
instance it will save me much work. Especially where the 
tariff is concerned. By hook and by crook I have man- 
aged to get hold of about thirty valuable works on the 
tariif . To write one single half-a-column article I have 
sometimes to consult as many as fifteen. I have prided 
myself on my tariff articles because of their perfect accu- 
racy. Even as much of a night owl as you are, I am pour- 
ing over Adam Smith, Beasley, McAdam, Granier, What- 
sook, etc., when you are asleep. I think that all the tariff 
books which come to the office, pro or con, you should 
give to me. I honed after McCulloch^s book. If you 
really mean for 3^our newspaper to fight out this fight, you 
ought to supply my cartridge-box when it costs nothing. 

3d. There is an editorial on Carter Harrison which 
you should permit to go in by all means. Morry, this 
miserable renegade's attack upon Cleveland was so unjust 



58 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

and cowardly that even stones on streets would cry out 
against it. 

Kansas City^ February 2, 1889. 

Perhaps you will think that I know something about 
foreign affairs. I predicted Boulanger. Also, the hum- 
bnggery of Emin Bey; also Stanley's fanfaronade; also 
Gladstone's complete overthrow; also the impossibility of 
France fighting Italy over Tunis; also the impossibility 
of Italy making inroads into Abyssinia — and now, hear me 
as^ain: The Crown Prince of Austria committed suicide. 
He was pitiably married, he had epilepsy, a girl as beautiful 
as the dawn was torn away from him, he was a powerful 
drinker, he used opium to excess, he scarcely slept five 
hours out of twenty-four, and what else could come except 
that terrible word — Finis. 

If you will let me, I would like to write half a column 
on him. It is part of the curse that he should die. I have 
Hungarian history open before me — the blackest, the 
crudest, the most unspairing ever recorded — and I wonder 
at nothing that now comes to the Hapsburgs. 



HIS LAST LETTER. 

Jefferson City, April 15, 1889. 
My Dear Morry: Frank Grraham told me this morning 
that you had been quite seriously sick with your old trouble. 
I need not tell you how grieved I was and how unhappy 
it made me. If it had been John or Jim I could not have 
sorrowed more. If you should die I would feel like I was — 

"Alone, alone, all, all alone — 
Alone on a wide, wide sea." 

There are but few men in this world for whose sake I 
would be willing to die, if nothing else but death would 
avail. You are one, Jo. Shelby is another, there might be 
two or three more; but these would cover the category. 
For God's sake take care of yourself. You do not do this. 
You think that you do, but there are times when you for- 
get yourself and undergo ruinous exposure. That infer- 
nal steam heat in your room at the office would kill a 
Ganges crocodile. You go from it to the open air — that is 
to say from a temperature of about 80 degrees to one of 
40. Victor Hugo wrote that no man could be suddenly 
transported from Senegal to Senegambia without losing 
his reason. 

I think the fight is won here. It has been hard. 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 59 

unceasing, and exhausting. Everything is being attacked 
— beef, hogs, liquor, telegraphs, telephones, express com- 
panies, stockyards, school text books — everything. The 
Democratic house is on fire from cellar to garret, and not 
a drop of water nearer than that apochryphal drop, which 
Abraham might have commanded, but didn^t, to cool the 
parched tongue of that otherwise apochryphal gentleman 
called Mr Dives. 

In about two years more, good-bye. Democracy. It 
has been a faithful old soul, God bless it ! Upon a time 
it strode across the land and giants sprang up. For a 
blessing it knelt at the feet of patriotism, and when it 
arose a long line of statesmen had been created. When 
the Civil War came it made all the lists of it jubilant with 
the clanking of its armor. 

And now what? 

Wolf scalps, imbecility, cowardice, demagogy, the 
chattering of monkeys, and the want of daily washing. I 

will be Morry, if a man can be a good Democrat unless 

he keeps his person clean. I am so tired. Just as soon 
as we can force the fight here to a final vote, I will come 
home. 

This is a glorious April day. Such days as these will 
soon make you as of old. 

Your friend as ever. 



^< ^7 .1 c-cCt/vo^C^- 



And now the most difficult part of this sad labor of 
love is but just begun— to tell in proper terms and fitting 
IDhrases of the greatness and nobleness of this Paladin, 
whose untimely ending brought so much sorrow to so 
many hearts — as illustrated through an intimate friend- 
ship of over twenty years. Within three weeks after his 
last letter I stood by his open grave in the village graveyard 
at Dover, and mingled my tears with others that were fall- 
ing as the earth was fast hiding all that was mortal from 
our sight. There was no feigned emotion on that sad occa- 
sion. The bronzed and grizzled veterans who had fought 
with him more than twenty-five years ago, wept as freely 
and felt as bereaved as his own wife and children. Never 
has earth closed upon mortal man more truly and sincerely 



60 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAllBS. 

mourned. Others as brilliant and gifted, have passed 
away and left a void intensified, it may be by their intel- 
lectual gifts, but no man of so rare and splendid genius 
ever died, at whose grave these gifts were so forgotten in 
sorrow for the nobleness of the man who was their 
possessor while alive. 

The two most distinguishing traits of character in John 
Edwards, as I knew him, were his absolute unselfishness 
and his genuine modesty. Coupled with these, of course, 
were undoubted courage and chivalry, devotedness and 
loyalty, an unvarying courtesy and cordiality, that 
wonderful memory of his which enabled him to never for- 
get a face or a name — all of which endeared him to old 
friends, and made new ones of those with whom he was 
brought in contact. But over and above, and greater far 
than all these, were his pure and unalloyed unselfishness 
and self-abnegation. Never once in our long and intimate 
acquaintance can I recall a single instance in which there 
was the shadow of a difference or variation when these 
phases of his character were called into action. No matter 
what the time or when the occasion, he was always ready 
to do and be done for his friends. Eegardless of money, 
of personal comfort or convenience, aye, of public opinion 
and the proprieties he would make any sacrifice to his own 
detriment, for a friend, it mattered not how poor, how 
humble, or even reviled, so John Edwards considered him 
a friend. This may be called devotion, and so it is, but 
its substratum is unselfishness. 

And it may be said that this might refer to notable 
instances of a public character in which there was much 
of glamour, and in which the mock-heroic could have been 
assumed for effect. 'I mean nothing of the kind. I am 
thinking and writing of the thousands of instances, in 
every day life, under all kinds of circumstances, when I 
have seen these traits so fully tested and so clearly exem- 
plified — of how I have seen him spend time, money, energy, 
brain power, influence, anything and everything, for some 
poor fellow who could not help himself, and whom John 
Edwards supposed he ought to help ; of how, in any cam- 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 61 

paign, undertaking or journey, his personality or conven- 
ience was never to be considered ; of how he always pre- 
ferred and looked to the comfort of others, whether patri- 
cians or plebians, the highest and most distinguished, or 
the lowest and most forsaken — in short, of how he seemed 
always to want to take the "^^ smallest half ^^ of everything, 
to think of everybody except himself, not humbly or 
ignobly, but naturally and with an unassumed grace, I 
have never seen in any other mortal man. Often I have 
said to myself: It was born in him, and he can not help it. 

If there was aught of self-pride or egotism in John 
Edwards, the world never knew it, nor did his most inti- 
mate friends. For twenty years he was recognized and 
acknowledged as the most gifted writer in the West. No 
matter on what newsjoaper he w^as engaged, his brilliant 
pen soon made for itself a place and an individuality that 
were known far and wide. Nearly all of this time he was 
one of the most prominent figures and potent factors in 
Missouri politics. He entered heart and soul into every 
campaign, first for his friends and always for his party. 
And yet during these twenty years, with the fierce light of 
political antagonism and professional rivalry shining upon 
him, no living man can point to one instance in which by 
word or deed John Edwards ever preferred or exalted him- 
self, or ever showed that he was conscious that he was the 
gifted son of genius, which everyone else knew except 
himself. Personal adulation and praise, especially of his 
writing, seemed always to be absolutely painful, and hun- 
dreds of times have I seen him adroitly turn the drift of 
such conversation into other channels. His relations with 
his newspaper associates seem to have been of the same 
kind as those with his army associates. All recognized his 
overshadowing ability but in no breast was there ever the 
tinge of envy. He was the equal, the friend, the helper of 
every man on the staff from reporter to proprietor, from 
private to general. And never once in army, in journalism, 
in politics, was he known to ask preferment or seek to be 
advanced. 

More than all this, he was an author — a writer of books. 



63 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAilDS. 

Two of his volumes, '^'Shelby and his Men/' and ^'Shelby's 
Expedition to Mexico " relate entirely to events and occur- 
rences in which John Edwards was an only less prominent 
participant than the commander himself. He was General 
Shelby^s adjutant-general, and held the same relation to 
him that Eawlins did to General Grant. It is no detrac- 
tion from the established fame of General Shelby or of any 
officer who served under him to say that during all those 
days John Edwards was much more than his title implied, a 
mere adjutant-general — that in fact he was more to Shelby 
than any captain, any colonel, any brigadier-general — that 
he was always at the war councils, and that his judgment 
outweighed them all. These volumes of John Edwards 
were written to perpetuate the deeds and glory of Shelby's 
command during the war, and to tell of the romantic 
march of the five hundred indomitables to Mexico after its 
close. And yet in neither of these volumes, '' Shelby 
and his Men,'' and " Shelby's Expedition to Mexico," 
does the name of the author John N. Edwards, 
appear except on the title pages and in official orders! I 
challenge the rounds of history, biography, memoirs, 
recollections and what not, to instance a parallel! Privates, 
corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, quartermasters, 
commissaries, colonels, generals, all — every one of them 
almost — are given a place in the only history that could 
perpetuate their names and their famiC. But the name of 
the author and the master spirit and what he did is never 
once intruded. I have asked myself time and again why 
does this man so abnegate himself, and I often tried to draw 
him out on the subject. His unvarying answer was that 
he had almost the horror of seeing his name in print as he 
would have of facing hydrophobia. His actions through- 
out years corroborated this statement. No journalist in 
Missouri ever received from his brethren of the press so many 
laudatory and eulogistic notices. But while inwardly he 
no doubt appreciated them, he never by word or deed or 
look gave evidence of that fact. He did not preserve 
them — he never kept a scrap book. Next to army 
experience, camping, marching, messmating, and fight- 



TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP. 63 

ing, there is no better crucible in which to test a man than 
in the active brain shop of a metropolitan newspaper. 
There obtains in the latter an esprit de co7ys that 
is surpassed nowhere except, perhaps, in a well organized 
and drilled military troop in active service. There can 
be no loafers or laggards in either corps. A man is soon 
^'sized up'^ and rated for what he is worth. John Edwards 
has been '' sized up " in both of these professions. Ask any 
of his old army comrades — all of them — and there is but one 
reply : '' He was the truest, the bravest among the brave, 
and withal the most modest and unselfish." So, also, 
would be the verdict of his newspaper friends, and 
especially those with whom he was last associated ; he was 
true always to his convictions, whether right or wrong — 
that he was brave goes without saying — that he was 
modest and unselfish, there is an avalanche of testimony. 
I shall add to these notes neither analysis nor pane- 
gyric which I leave to other but not more devoted friends. 
I have felt that no pen but his own could do full justice 
to such a character as that of John N. Edwards. To us 
who were for so many years his daily companions; who 
have experienced the loyalty of his friendship, the inef- 
fable charm of his personality, and the masterful force of 
his genius, the loss is a bitter one, and words die upon the 
lips as we look into this open grave. Thousands and tens 
of thousands share the bereavement who also shared his 
loving kindness and charity — his daily practice of the 
sentiment: 

' In men whom men condemn as ill, 
I find so much of goodness still; 
In men whom men pronounce divine, 
I see so much of sin and blot, 
I hesitate to draw a line, 
Between the two where God has not." 

The life which closed with the death of John Edwards 
grows no less beautiful and admirable as we realize that 
he has gone from us. He has left imperishable memen- 
toes through which he will live wherever human hearts 
beat to generous emotions. But far the most cherished 



64 JOHN NEWMAN EDWATIDS. 

recollections will be those of liis personal friends, those 
who knew how genuine were his qualities, how warm and 
tender and true he was back of the genius which flashed 
through his images. 

These lines from Pope might serve as a fitting epi- 
taph : — 

" — Friend to truth, of soul sincere, 
In action faithful, and in honor clear; 
Who broke no promise, served no private end. 
Who gained no title, and vv^ho lost no friend." 

Kan'SAS City, June 8, 1889. 



WRITINGS OF JOHN N. EDWARDS. 



" POOR CARLOTTA." 

[From tlie Kansas City Times, May 29, 1870.] 

Dispatches from Europe say that the malady is at its worst, 
and that the youug widow of Maximilian is near her death hour. 
Ah ! when the grim king does come, he will bring to her a blessing 
and a benediction. The beautiful brown eyes have been lusterless 
these many months ; the tresses of her sunny hair have long ago 
been scorched with fever and pain , the beautiful and brave young 
Spartan, rich in energy, in love, in passionate devotion, knows no 
more the roses and lawns of Miramar ; the Mediterranean brings no 
more from, over perilous seas the silken pennon of her fair-haired 
royal sailor lover. It is quiet about Lacken, where the Empress lays 
a-dyiog ; but Time will never see such another woman die until the 
whole world dies. 

It is not much to die in one's own bed, peaceful of conscience 
and weary of child-bearing. The naked age is crowded thick with 
little loves, and rose-water"lines, and the pink and the white of the 
bridal toilettes. Here is a queen now in extremity, who reigned in 
the tropics, and whose fate has over it the lurid grandeur of a vol- 
cano. A sweet Catholic school-girl she was when the Austrian 
came a-wooing, with a ship of the line for chariot. She played 
musical instruments ; she had painted rare pictures of Helen, and 
Oinphale in the arms of Hercules, and Jeanne d'Arc with the yel- 
low hair, and the pensive Roland — her of the Norncan face — over 
whose black doom there still flits a ruddy fervor, streaks of bright 
Southern tint, not wholly swallowed up of death. Yes ! it was a 
love-match, rare in king-craft and court cunning. Old Leopold's 
daughter married with the flags of three nations waving over her, 
ami(i the roar of artillery andthe broadsides of battle-ships. The 
sea gave its sapphire bloom and the skies their benison. Afar off 
French eagles were seen, alas! to shadow all the life of the bride 
with the blood of the husband. The nineteenth century witnessed 
the heroic epic which darkened to such a tragedy. She came to 
Mexico, bringing in her gentle hands two milk-white doves, as it 
were. Charity and Religion. 

Pure as all women; stainless as an angel-guarded child; proud 
as Edith of the swan's neck; beautiful; a queen of all hearts where 
honor dwelt; mistress of the realms of music; rare in the embroid- 
ery she wove; having time for literature and letters; sensuous only 
in the melody of her voice: never a mother — it was as though God 
had sent an angel of light to redeem a barbaric race and sanctify a 
degraded people. How she tried and how she suffered, let the fever 
which is burning her up alive give answer. It is not often that the 
world looks upon such a death -bed. Yet in the rosy and radiant 
toils of the honeymoon, a bride came to govern an empire where 

65 



66 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

armies did her bidding, and French Marshals, scarred at Inkermann 
and Solferino, kissed with loyal lips her jeweled hand and mur- 
mured through their gray moustaches words of soldierly truth and 
valor. Slie sate herself down in the palace of the Montezumas and 
looked out amid the old elms where Cortez's swart cavaliers had 
made love in the moonlight, their blades not dry with blood of the 
morning's buttle; upon (Jhepultepec, that had seen the cold glitter 
of American steel and the gleam of defiant battle flags; upon the 
Alemada where Alvarado look the Indian maiden to kiss, who 
drove the steel straight for his heart, and missed, and found a surer 
lodgment in her own. 

All these were bridal gifts to the Austrian's bride — the brown- 
eyed, beautiful Carlota. Noble white vision in a land of red har- 
lots, with soft, pitying, queenly face ; hair flowing down to the 
girdle, and as true a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom. As a 
Grecian statue, serenely complete, she shines out in that black wreck 
of things a star. 

It c ime suddenly, that death of her lover and her husband. It 
dared not draw near when the French eagles flew, but afterward what 
a fate for one so royal and so brave. God shielded the tried heart 
from the blow of his last words, for they were so tender as to carry 
a sorrow they could not heal. "Poor Carlota!" Youth, health, 
reason, crown, throne, empire, armies, husband, all gone. Why 
should the fates be so pitiless and so unsparing? 

Somewherein eternity within some golden palace walls, where 
old imperial banners float, and Launcelots keep guard, and Arthurs 
reign, and all the patriot heroes dwell, her Maximilian is waiting for 
his bride. Long ago that spotless soul has been there. Let death 
come quickly and take the body, and end its misery and subdue its 
pain. All that is immortal of Carlota is with her husband. The 
tragedy is nearly over. In an age of iron and steam and armies 
and a world at peace, it remained for a woman to teach nations how 
an empress loves and dies. Who shall dare to say hereafter there 
is nothing in blood or birth ? What gentle sister, in the struggle 
and turmoil of life, will look away from that death-bed in Lacken 
Castle, and not bless God for being a woman and of the sex of her 
who is dying for her king and her empire? Sleep! the angels have no 
need of sleep. Nothing suffices love. Having happiness, one wishes 
for Paradise; having Paradise, one wishes for Heaven. There is a 
starry transfiguration mingled with her crucifixion. The crown is 
almost hers, and in the beautiful garden of souls she will find once 
more the monarch of her youth. 

A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. 

[Kansas City Times, April 2Q, 1873.] 

It seems so strange that the hands of poetry should be laid upon 
perishable things. Heir of immortality itself, its offspring also 
should be immortal, having no stain of earth, no link that rusts, no 
flower that fades, no stream that runs dry, no passion that con- 
sumes, no sun that is obscured, no morning without its dawn, and 
no sky without its rainbow and its twilight. The picture that it 
calls into life, the book that it makes beautiful, the idea that it 
etherializes, the field that it decorates, the warrior that it ennobles, 
the woman that it makes angelic — all, all should live only in the 
atmosphere that surrounded their creation, in the memories the poem 
made impervious to time or the rough current of real and practical 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 67 

tilings. Fancy has its own imperial caste, and surrenders but too 
sorrowfully its precious and adored deceits. There are too many 
lattice bars against which its wings beat in vain, and too many false 
and luring lights in the windows'of its hope's first afhuence — in the 
color and charm of its day-dreams and its visions. 

It can do no good — however sternly inexorable the logic of to-day 
may be — to make the Cleopatra of our youth forty-two and cross- 
eyed when Anthony lost Actuim for her own sweet sake. It can do 
no good to doubt the story of the asp, and deny the half-human, 
half -panther instinct which, cruel to the last, forgave not the losing 
of the battle, nor the deep sword-thrust that was sterner proof of 
Raman love than the starkest blow ever struck by legionary or 
Egyptian. Why deny that when the long, voluptuous dance was 
done — a dance dreamily danced in the odor of frankincense and the 
balm of myrrh — that the full, pouting lips of the beautiful Hero- 
dias made no pleading prayer for an august head laureled with 
God's benediction ? It brings no peace to any dreamer'^ dream to 
know that the deft fingers which wove the web of long deceit and 
broken promise were gaunt and wrinkled, and that the good king, 
in the ceaseless clatter of Penelope's shrewish tongue, longed for 
the blue sweep of the seas running shoreward, for the wines of the 
nymphs — the Bacchanal court, and the sweet, long loves of the 
Queen Calypso. 

And now the once fair " Maid of Athens " lies a-dying, old, 
withered, abandoned of the world and forgotten altogether. The 
wife of an English consul in Greece, Byron met her, loved her for 
a month and a day, sung of her, and sailed away. The song did 
not die — will not die. It was passionate and beautiful. Many re- 
member it; many remember some voice that has lingered over it — 
some night when it dwelt in the memory as a star lives in the sky — 
some intonation that had a meaning as sweet as it was hidden. 

"Maid of Athens, ere we part, 
Give, oh ! g'ive me back my heart." 

She was beautiful then. The black hair was long and lustrous; 
her eyes that unfathomable hue born of a moment's pleasure or pas- 
sion; her form the lithe, superb motion Byron's heroines always 
had, her voice softly musical and tuned to the old Italian airs he 
loved so dearly. The fancy pleased him passing well, but no sin 
came of it all, and over against his name — when the inexorable angel 
has made up the records of the world — there will be written naught 
of a folly that could darken the frown even on the unforgiving face 
of his uncharitable and unsympathetic wife. 

And to-day the Maid of Athens, forgotten of the world, lies old, 
withered, helpless, waiting for death in sight of the blue waves that 
went out with her life's firstromance and'her poet lover. It is well, 
perhaps, that time kneels at no shrine and passes no heads by 
untinged of gray and unshorn of laurels. He would linger, else, too 
long for hearts that are breaking and weariness that would be at 
rest. The grave alone is sacred ground. Its confines mark the 
limit of finite beauty and bloom, and no matter how sweet the song 
that pours its fragrance out, nor how adored the idol lifted up in the 
placid past of youth and joyous retrospect, it were better that time 
shrouded and shattered all, than, like the wisest and best of human- 
ity, it knelt at the feet of some alluring fancy — worshiped beneath 
the rays of some imperial beauty that had even Byron for votary or 
voluptuary. 

And death should come quickly to her whose face is a picture 



68 ^ JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

yet in the pensive glow and glory of its Norman setting — come in 
with the tide bearing swift ships from her native England — bearing 
voices that sing the sweet songs of him who knew and loved the 
Maid of Athens a long half century ago. 

PILOT, WHAT OF THE SHIP? 

[Kansas City Times, April 26, 1872]. 

In the ceaseless drift and change of things, not many eyes have 
watched and not many hearts have listened for tidings from the 
good ship Polaris, going on grandly into the night of an unknown 
ocean. From out the gloom and the silence of the frozen wilder- 
ness no words have come back of good cheer or safet}^, and it may 
be that tbe hearts which beat bravest when the vessel sailed, and the 
voices that were blithest and gayest, will beat never more and sing 
never again till the waters of the world have passed away for- 
ever. 

Yet the ocean loves its offspring — loves with a love beyond the 
land; those who tempt perilous things and live heroic lives, face to 
face with the fates of the storm and ihe harpies of the lee shore and 
the wreck. And who knows how much of this strange pity may go 
to color the web of Hall's deathless adventure, and weave into its 
warp and woof stray streaks of arctic sunshine, not wholly swallowed 
up of the midnight and the glacier. 

It was summer when the Polaris sailed, the scent of many 
flowers in the land breeze and the voices of many birds in the trees. 
All nature held out pleading hands — a mute protest of odor, and 
bloom, and the singing of happy waters, and the glad and green- 
growing things on the upland and meadow. Autumn came, and 
winter, and now the spring again, with blessing of blossom and 
promise of fruit, and soon \vith the summer once more a year will 
have gone. One year, and not a word from this American vessel, 
with her American crew, bearing American hearts that have prom- 
ised to find the Open Sea, or perish. 

The nation has not forgotten them. There maybe some, per- 
haps, too manv, who have only a sneer for the brave endeavor, •■ u\ 
onlya faith inlts folly and failure, but the great sympathetic un . r- 
current of the land is with the mariners, praying right on thjit ihe 
Northern Ocean may give up its secrets— that favoring winds may 
bear them back safely to their own again. How speeds the ship 
and how fares the crew, the waves hnve not told, nor any voice yet 
heard in the homes of the absent. What form death took in clam- 
bering over the bulw^arks, if death came at all, and what rites were 
said in the face of the wondering midnight, not any messenger has 
yet returned bearing aught of record or tidings. Perhaps all is w^ell. 
Terror and night and the unknown are all in league with the 
spirits who sentinel the Open Sea— grim watchers at the uttermost 
gates of the world— but even now the mists may have been rolled 
back from before the longing eyes, letting in visions of waves that 
sleep in a tranquil summer sunshine— visions of islands green with 
palms and fringed in scented and odorous things. Who knows? So 
Franklin believed and died. So Kane prophesied and passed 
away. And so Hall did write but one short year ago, when he 
gave his fate to the ocean and his family to science and his country. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 69 

(^UANTRELL. 

[Kansas City Times, May 13, 1873.] 

As the glorification of living and dead guerrillas seems now to 
be the order of the day, a few words as to the character of this, the 
king of guerrillas, may not be amiss. Since Mosby's recent inter- 
view with General Grant, the Radical papers declare that his sins, 
though as scarlet, shall be made white as snow. No good reason, 
therefore, exists why the truth shall not be told of one who, brave 
and steadfast to the end, died as he had lived, a fearless Ishmaelite. 

Richardson, whom McFcirland killed, wrote once in a letter 
from Denver city to the New York Tribune, of Billy West, a noted 
border man, as "the swarthy Adonis of the Plains." Carrying 
forward the simile, Quantreirmight be likened unto a blonde Apollo 
of the prairies. His eyes w^ere very blue, soft and winning. 
Peculiar they were in this, that they never were in rest. Looking 
at the face, one might say there is the face of a student. It was 
calm, serene, going oftener to pallor than to laughter. It may be 
that he liked to hear the birds sing, for hours and hours he would 
linger in the woods alone. His'hands were small and perfectly 
molded. Who could tell in looking at them that they were the 
most deadly hands with a revolver in all the border. Perhaps no 
man ever had more complete mastery over a horse than Quantrell, 
and whether at a furious gallop or under the simple swing of the 
route step, he could lean from the saddle and snatch a pebble from 
the ground. 

Anderson was a tiger let loose ; Quantrell was a tiger too, 
that had the innocence of a lamb. Nature loves to group the gro- 
tesque. Hence all the smiles his features had on when his pitiless 
lips, pronounced the death sentence. Todd mingled no melody 
with his murders ; Quantrell was heard to sing little snatches 
of song as the gray smoke rolled away from his pistol. ^ Mosby 
delighted in surprises and disguises ; Quantrell published his name 
broadcast when the mood was on him, and blazed it along the 
route of his travels as if it were a cloud to cover him. He was 
unlike them all, just as he was greater than them all. 

It is instructive sometimes to'study the pictures the war painted. 
No nation furnishes a counterpart for guerrillas such as ours, except 
Spain. France had a few, but women tempted them and they were 
trapped and slain. These Missourians loved women, but the love 
lasted not be3^ond the bivouac. In the morning each heart was all 
iron. What instructs one in the contemplation of such characters, 
is their intense individuality. Horrified at their ferocity, one yet 
delights to analyze their organization. If there is a race born with- 
out fear, Quantrell belonged to it. He loved life, and yet he did not 
value it. Perhaps this is why it was so hard to lose it. In his war- 
life, which was one long, long, mercilevss crusade, he exhibited all 
the qualities of cunning, skill, nerve, daring, physical endurance, 
remorseless cruelty, abounding humor, insatiable revenge, a cour- 
age that was sometimes cautious to excess and sometimes desperate 
to temerity. In the midst of a band who knew no law but the re- 
volver, his slightest wish was anticipated and obeyed. Hence his 
power to command was unquestioned. Recognizing no flag but the 
black flag, he sat as quietly down in the midst of a hostile country 
as the foes who were on his track ; and having shaken hands with 
death, he thought no more of the word surrender. If he believed 
in God, he denied the special providences of heaven, and stabled 



70 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAEDS. 

his horses in a church as well as in a stall. Without knowing the 
ghastly irony of it, perhaps, he was often heard to oifcr up a prayer 
for a victim. 

It is useless to declare that these kind of characters do not 
attract. All Paris came to see Cartouche hung, and yet Cartouche 
was only a robber. But then his little child was suspended on the 
same scaffold. In the arsenal at Jefferson City is a picture of Bill 
Anderson, taken after death. The ciear-cut face is ghastly pale. A 
white, mute, appealing look is on the tense, drawn features. Dead 
leaves and sand are in the long yellow hair and tawn}^ beard. For 
hours women gather about this picture and babble of balls and 
revels and dances and battles, and ever and ever come back to the 
white, set face and the wan, mute features. ISo visitor goes away 
without seeing it, and thinking of it for many a day thereafter. 

No nation equals in individuality the American. Her people 
possess all the elements to make the finest soldiers on earth. Keen, 
desperate, enduring, insatiate for the excitement of active conflict, 
and readily hardened into reckless butchers, they make conscience 
subsidiary to slaughter, and accept the fortunes of a struggle with a 
fatalism that is Oriental. As a perfect type of this, Quantrell will 
live as a model. Sooner or later he knew death would come, and so 
he forgot him. Meanwhile his killing went on, and his exploits 
filled a historic page of the gigantic contest. 

This California paper is too far away to know the truth of his 
last battle's ending. The curious can find his grave if they will look 
for it in Kentucky, deep enough to keep him till the judgment day. 
Bloodier and crueller than Mosby, he died as he had lived, wor- 
shiped by a few, loved by many, and abhorred of half the nation. 

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 

[Kansas City Times, May 13, 18T2.] 

The dead poet and painter — American and therefore sectional — 
has gone to his grave before it was yet springtime on all the ways 
and the woods of his lordly west. The bloom of the lilacs had 
faded, and the white tentsof the dogwoods had been pitched beyond 
the green of the swelling uplands, but there was something the May 
days wanted — some fullness of sap in the maple-trees, some softer 
music in the hush that lingered by the edges of the running water, 
some rarer radiance in the hues that made the gold and crimson of the 
sunset skies. And if he could have waited yet a little while — waited 
until the gentler spring and the softer summer took hands in the 
laughing weather — their blended lives having only the roses as a 
stream betv/een them — heaven might have seemed nearer, and fairer 
and closer to the reach of the hands that will never touch pencil or 
pen again this side eternity. 

He was not a great poet, nor will America ever produce one 
until all sectional lines are broken down and all sectional passions 
obliterated. The realms of poetry are nature's own, bounded by the 
blue skies, the fields, the flowers, the lessons that humanity teaches, 
the songs thatryhthm make musical, the pictures that art adorns, the 
yearnings that fancy interprets, the mortality that imagination 
glorifies and redeems. Wars send abroad over tlie land stern battle 
lyrics that bear in their ringing cadence the sound of sudden sword- 
blades, and the dim, nebulous swing of burnished bayonets, but 
they are foreign wars, waged when a nation's life it at hazard or a 
nation's honor at stake, ' Read sang of a soldier whose morning 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 71 

was clouded by doubtful fame, and whose evening had over it the 
baleful light of rapine and slaughter. No matter, he came to laurel 
Sheridan and he did it, in that desolate valley by Winchester town, 
after the conflict was done and the glory awarded. History, how- 
ever, rejecting the sonorous swell of the picturesque ride, lays its 
inexorable tribute at the feet of Wright, unsung and unknown 
though he be in the numbers of the poet. Truth, the terrible logi- 
cian, halts never a moment for a smiJe from the " sweetest lips that 
ever were kissed " — for a verse from the sweetest song that ever was 
sung. In the mills of the critics where the grinding is done, that 
which is false is crushed with its rhetoric, and that which is true is 
redeemed with its glory and its gold. 

No matter again, he believed in his hero, and faith with a poet 
is religion. Somewhere in the islands of the blest — somewhere be- 
yond the sunset shore he will find the old, glad days of his Italian 
weather again. There must be an Italy in heaven, or the world 
would send thither none like Byron, nor Shelley, nor Keats, nor De 
Musset, nor Scott, nor the boy Chatterton, nor the woman Brown- 
ing, sweet in royal singer fashion, the purest, fairest, saddest Eng- 
lish Bird of Paradise who ever, swan-like, sang and died. 

JAMES GORDON BENNETT. 

[Kansas City Times, June 8, 1872.1 

The telegraph brings the news that this aged and war-worn editor 
is near his death hour — that even now he may have passed over the 
river to rest under the shade of the trees. About the death of any 
Paladin there is always something of solemn import, something 
that attracts, even while it terrifies. No matter how the life had 
been, no matter whether the prowess that lifted him up a giant 
among his fellows was the prowess that the pirate has, that the Free 
Lance boasts who fights for gold or for beauty, that the Christian 
owns who dares the Syrian night winds — it is the last, last act alone 
of the tragedy called existence which fascinates those who gaze in 
upon the struggle. There is the standard lifted up on some perilous 
day, torn now and bloody; there is the good sword too heavy for 
the weak hands that will never use steel again ; there are the hau- 
berk and shield, dinted by many a blow and cleft by many a battle- 
stroke ; and there, too, it may be, faded and soiled, is what the world 
knew not, a little glove or bunch of ribbon, telling the old, old story 
of how, in the stern, unpitying heart there was a memory that all 
the desolating work of rapine and slaughter could not banish or 
obliterate. 

James Gordon Bennett came to America a rugged Scotch boy, to 
whom the world owed a living. Alone, friendless, penniless, who 
can doubt how the beginning went, and how the struggle began. 
Pinched in pocket, oftentimes hungry, made sullen by disappoint- 
ment, and vindictive from Ihe utter isolation of his life, he hated 
society because he believed society hated him. Hence all that long, 
fierce warfare upon it, which brought him curses, insults, blows, 
prosecutions, fines, and once an imprisonment. Even in the gutter 
the old Scotch desperation writhed up against the foot that_ was 
trampling him down, that it might deal a blow as stark as him of 
Colonsay at Bannockburn. Much self communing makes men sav- 
ages or dwarfs; solitude either gives veneration or cruelty. Bennett 
was a savage of the streets; his cruelty dealt with character and rep- 
, utation— blasting and blighting them as a hoar-frost would the sura- 



72 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

mer plants. It was a terrible warfare, this of his in poverty and 
gloom. He stood upon the streets with a pencil for a pistol — this 
freebooter of the alleys, crying out to the proud and the rich: Stand 
and deliver. Want assailed him, and the law, and the bravoes of 
that society, whom he hated and defied. But the Scotch blood and 
bitterness were there, and he fought like a wolf at bay. His pen 
was dipped in poison. Scandal, stripped to the waist, made an elab- 
orate toilet before all New York in waiting, and fast men and women 
clapped their hands and applauded. Amid it all, however, he had a 
wife who was beautiful and whom he idolized. Strange union, this 
man and that woman — one hating the cMffonieres and the offal of his 
hateful life, and the other turning to him as an angel of goodness, 
when the deep loathing and disgust was uppermost, and tying a rose- 
bud in his button-hole. 

He struggled also for notoriety, and gained it — such notoriety 
as Lafitte and Murrell had. His paper was read by all, sought 
for by ail, bought by all, and then the tide turned. One day he 
came forth a new man, faultlesslydressed, having gloves upon his 
hands, and boots upon his feet. He lifted an elegant beaver to the 
world, and bowed to it as one who meant to treat the world civilly. 
This soldier of fortune had become to be a Marshal of the Empire ; 
this Dugald Dalghetty was no longer a Free Lance, but a Baron with 
armorial crest and quarterings. The two lives kept pace together — 
the newspaper's life and the editor's life. Where he poisoned before, 
he stimulated; where he pulled down before, he builtup; wherehe lac- 
erated before, he soothed and gratified ; and where he administered vit- 
riol before, he gave opiates and rosewater. The shadow of the Herald 
fell upon a continent, and men rested under it and found it grateful. 
The immense enterprise and brain-power of the man were turned into 
legitmate channels. Never sincere, however, never reliable, never a 
partisan in politics, those whom he supported longest and truest felt 
that behind the mask there was a grim, sardonic smile which toler- 
ated them while it despised them. Not all the old clansman's blood 
was entirely eradicated. The love of the sudden and the grotesque 
would ever and anon breakout, and for a grand sensation men knew 
he would sacrifice a President or immolate a senator. And he did, 
roaming over the political field as an incarnate executioner, cutting 
off heads that were sometimes the wisest and the most august. In 
a revolution, he would have been Camille Desmoulins ; in the 
Chamber, Barriere; at the barricades, St. Just, who turned pale 
and wept, giving as a reason : "I am too young and too poor to 
die." 

The country grew, and grew, and changed until the country of 
Bennett's youth and Bennett's maturity were as two countries, the 
years a rolling stream between. But he filled the new country with 
his fame as he had the old. The HeralcTs empire remained without 
a rival, and to day, while he lies a-dying or dead, he knows, if that 
curious, gnarled, rugged nature knows aught of earth, that behind 
him as a monument is left the greatest newspaper the new world has 
ever known or seen. His ways to make it such were his own ways, 
dark and crooked though they were at times, yet he had that great- 
est of all merit — success — the only standard by which a soldier of 
fortune can be judged this side the court where human reason and 
human intellect are no longer lamps to light and guide us in the 
paths of duty. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 73 

FENIMORE COOPER. 

[Kansas City Times, October 16, 1878.] 

In the Indian summer, that honeymoon of the year, one loves 
to recall the names of those who made nature a great white throne 
where men might kneel, or dream, or worship. It is good for all of 
us, no matter, when or how, to get away alone in the dim woods, 
and those authors are dearest to us who lead on to where the even- 
ing will fold its purple wings about the trees, or where, in the white 
hush of the morning, the kisses of the breeze will awaken the sleep 
of the flowers. Isolation comes often as an anodyne softer than 
night, or dreams in the night. The forest has a voice which, thrill- 
ing, articulate, mighty, speaks to the inmost soul of the glory of 
God and of the wonderful powers of His Omnipotence. 

There is no tree which gathers to its grateful branches the dew 
and the sunshine; no unseen brook that babbles of the lowlands and 
the summer's sea; no trailing vine that lifts its soft lips up to the 
bearded lips of the oak; no swaying nest, vocal with life and love; 
no flower that feeds its bee; no spring that slakes some creature's 
thirst; no bird that sits and sings for joy; no glad or growing or 
happy thing in all the woods that has no voice to tell something 
good or true — of something to make life brighter and braver, and 
better for all of us. 

Cooper is the novelist of the woods. The spirit of nature has 
entered into his genius and inspired it. As Byron loved the ocean; 
as Shelley the placid lakes, where the blue of the waves and the blue 
of the sky were deep together; as Poe the midnight and the waning 
moon, so Cooper loved the mighty woods, no matter whether 
spring had peopled all its waiting places with bud and blossom, or 
summer with wealth and teeming life, or autumn with crimson and 
gold, or winter with its vanguard of snow, which could be seen 
creeping stealthily through the pines, until the melodies of the 
streams were mute, and a glaze as of death had swept over all their 
dimples. 

Cold actuality has discarded his Indian pictures, and bereft 
many a hamlet and stream of the delightful romance of his genius, 
but who wishes to analyze a novel? What difl'erence does it make if 
the champagne which intoxicates is a mixture of prussic acid, Jersey 
cider, and beet leaves? None want to look beneath the sparkle and 
foam for the dark sediment that has headache in it, and heartache as 
well. Cooper fascinates. Through five books he carries a single 
character — that of Natty Bumppo — and the light that shines upon 
him is always the light which eomes from some tree, some stream, 
some desolate trail, some hushed and thrilling ambushment, some 
river that runs to the sea, some little clearing where a cabin stands, 
the blue smoke going up to the blue skies as a prayer to the^ good 
God who guards alike the trapper in the wilderness and the king in 
the midst of his capital. ; 

"We do not believe that the fame of the great American novelist 
is dying out, no matter what some Eastern critics have lately said 
and written. Who is there to take his place? What hand anywhere 
yet lifted up can weave the web of romanceas he has woven it about 
all the great lakes, and all the great tribes gone or decimated? It 
is true that the pathway of progress lies over the graves of the Indians, 
and that the vices of civilization have made the remnant of the race 
a cruel, beggarly, degraded few; but we seek only for our gratifica- 
tion among the ideal creations of his fancy, and not where the 



74 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

sfiualid Diggers live on grasslioppers, and the vindictive Apaches 
murder all alike — the old and the young, the women and the chil- 
dren. It is nature we want as revealed by one who worshiped at 
her shrine, and who felt her beauty and her glory enter him as a 
divine love, purifying his imagination and giving to his prose the 
music and tremor of a hymn. God grant that the mantle of this 
great man, so long unknown, may yet lind a resting-place upon some 
new American Cooper, as wonderful in his creations as the great 
original. 

SCHUYLER COLFAX. 

[Kansas City Timet\ February IS, 1873.] 

There is a momentary pity in the hearts of most men for any ani- 
mal huuied hard and brought at last to bay. No matter how 
trapped, or sought, or slain, some commiseration will mingle with 
the death stiuggle when the yearnings of the chase are over, and 
not a little of weariness and disgust because for the skill of the 
hunter there could only be the conquest that destroyed without re- 
storing again. But if anywhere in all this broad land there is one 
who begrudged the Credit Mobilier its righteous and unmerciful 
work upon Schuyler Colfax, there is no record made by either 
press or pulpit. 

An unctuous, smiling, psalm-singing, cold-water hypocrite, he 
must have knelt down when he took his bribe just to sIidw God how 
fervent he was. He must have laughed, too, in the face of his soul 
and promised it a camp-meeting holiday, with a feast of hymns and 
a revel of prayer, wherein conscience, a beautiful angel no longer, 
transformed its body into railroad stock and its wings into cou- 
pons—a dividend for the harp within its hand and the crown upon 
its head. 

The creature and the pet of the w^ar, it swallowed him as a 
mighty whale a gigantic Jonah. Strange food for such a stomach. 
Strange taste for the appetite that had devoured citits sacked and 
pillaged, provinces laid waste, and living armies arrayed as growing 
corn, fresh with the beams of the morning of life abd ripe for the 
scythe of the harvester Death. One day he w^as cast forth again, 
and the faithful places knew him a miracle by the white of his sanc- 
tified vest, the cut of his orthodox coat, the zeal of his loyal 
prayers, and the penetrating sweetness of a seraphic smile that made 
all the tough missionaries easier of digestion, and all the Christian 
Association stockholders in the radical party. Babies were named 
for him, and he kissed and blessed them, and dabbkd among their 
diapers for votes. Temperance societies invoked his inspiration, 
and he drank their soda water and their chamomile tea. Sewing 
circles worshiped at his shrine, and offered up a sister a day as a 
sacrifice. Sunday-schools patented little pious proverbs and pinned 
them to the name of Colfax. Prayer-meetings wrestled with the 
Lord for Schuyler's promotion, and eliminated from their cate- 
chisms the story of Ananias and Sapphira. 

For others there were glory, fame, records made noble in battle, 
manhood, triumphs, deeds donedaringly for man and for humanity; 
but for Schuyler the sole irrevocable and eternal smile. He laughed 
in the faces of the corpses that the waves of the w^ar threw out upon 
the ghastly beaches of society; at the feet that had waded in the 
valleys of the strife and came away crimson to the instep; at maimed 
and furloughed veterans, homeward bound and laureled; at fairs 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 75 

and sanitary gatherings, and at all the crowds that 'met to tell of 
victorous tights by land or sea. One day the men who frowned and 
fought were mustered out, and Schuyler got well ahead in the 
jackal race that knew no goal but loyalty and plunder. But alas! 
alas ! for Schuyler. Another day and a fisherman came who cast his 
net into the sacred places of the House and Senate and snared such 
lordly and loyal lish as Patterson and Dawes, Harlan and Kelley, 
Mr. Speaker Blaine and Mr. President Colfax. Even through the 
meshes of the trap there shone on the bland face of Schuyler the 
same old smile. They dragged him forth in the light of the Credit 
Mobilier conflagration, so that the world might see what manner of 
a fish he was. There was the same immaculate vest, the same coat, 
and brass buttons, and cold-water countenance, and beaming and 
benignant face. Brother Newman recognized him and blessed him. 
The Young Men's Christian Association of Boston drew a draft in 
favor of his integrity and demanded that the Great God should cash 
it; South Bend thrilled through all the limestone veins of its tem- 
perance societies and drowned its virtuous grief in soothing ginger- 
pop. Too late! Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate was ever more 
an object of contempt — ever a more polluted, tainted and accursed 
thing. To bribery there had been added perjury, to hypocriscy the 
crime of detection. Even the smile that had cheated the devil 
through all the years of hatred and persecution and annual baby- 
shows, and Good Templar funeral services, fled from the mouth that 
had sworn to a lie, and hovered like a dove, it is supposed, until 
taken into a laminated steel-spring hoop-skirt factory at South 
Bend, Indiana. Men who hold bribes in cosmopolitan hands can 
wash them and get well again; but for the Puritan who all his life 
fingered only the prayers of the Pharisee, there is only leprosy and 
death. He could not rend his garments and be forgiven if he 
would. For the lion , snared or shot, there is human pity and regret, ; 
for the soft-pawed, slinking jackal, only the hayings of the watch- 
dogs and the broom-sticks of the washerwomen. Away with the 
corpse to the Potter's Field. Is there any need of epitaph? No. 
Yet, lest loyalty should seek some nobler grave to find its perjured 
priest, a monument uplifted there might bear for record the simple 
words — Uriah Heep. 

BON VOYAGE, MISS NELLIE. 

[St, Louis Evening DisiMtcli, May 32, 1874,] 

The young, innocent thing just married to a stranger and borne 
to a stranger's home, will carry with her the blessings and good 
wishes of the American people. No matter the pomp of the cere- 
mony, the preciousness of the bridal gifts, the magnificent display 
that waited upon the marriage of the president's daughter, there was 
something supremely sad in that almost regal heart plighting, where 
the fairer and the weaker was so soon to say good-bye, and so soon to 
sail away from parents and kindred and native land, the passionate 
yearning for which is never known until forsaken. In the spring 
time afiluence of her first love, and bravely loyal and womanly 
patient, she will bear herself proudly up and sing and sigh not 
through the beautiful English summer weather; but when it is 
autumn on all the woods, and the night comes, and the talk of home 
and friends beyond the sea, tears will gather in the calm brown eyes, 
and pensive longings that whisper and cling about the heart until, as 
a bird set free, the sweet young bride, so homesick and so hungry for 



76 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

the land of her birth, will return again for a mother's tender kiss and 
a father's gentle greeting. 

Not as the daughter of a president, nor yet as one born to the 
memories of a name and fame great in the somber glories of a civil 
war, do the Americans send benisons and blessings after the sweet 
young bride. For her womanhood alone do they honor her, and for 
the rare fragrance of a sinless and stainless life. A Christian 
mother reared her a Christian child, and she carries to the old world 
from the new a character made strong with the precepts of duty 
and a proud consciousness that the true domain where she can rule 
by right divine is home — the subjects whose loyalty is most impor- 
tant, the children that God will give her— the works most necessary 
for her to study, their little hearts— and the treasure best worth 
seeking, her husband's love. 

LITTLE NELSON W. DALBT. 

[Sedalia Dcmocrat.l 

Sang a poet once: 

•' God's lightning spares the laureled head." 

But why not that other one, laureled with six summers of curls 
and six summers of sunshine? Don't you see he was taken the day 
before the Mayday, when all the birds could have sung for him, and 
all the buds burst into bloom for him, and all the grasses grow so 
green for him, and all the odorous, blossomy, glorious weather put 
surely for him the red in his cheeks and the south wind in his hair? 
You see he was also so young. Every little garment he left con- 
tained a legacy of grief. He did not walk without taking the hand 
of his mother or father. He never knew a night outside the parent 
nest. He clung so. If he had only been a soldier and fallen in bat- 
tle, his face to the foe and the flag of his faith above him ; if he had 
only been a man, scarred by life's combat and scorched by life's 
fever ; if he could only have worn harness and put a war plume in 
his helmet's crest ; but you see he was only a little blue-eyed, fair- 
faced, timid, shrinking boy, laying his head in hismother's lap when 
he wanted to sleep, and saying his prayers by his mother's knee 
when he wanted to be put to bed. 

Peace after such a sacrifice ! Never any more this side the 
river called the River of Death. There is the little grave, lying out 
in the dawn and the dew, awaiting the resurrection. There are the 
garments he wore. There are broken toys, 

"And pieces of rings, 
And f ragements of songs which nobody sings, 
A lute unswept. and a harp without strings, 
And part of an infant's prayer." 

There are words before the cooing had given place to the lisping, 
and the lisping had lapsed into the thrill and the vibration of the yet 
untutored voice. There is the vacant chair. There is above these 
and over and beyond all these, the cry of the finite soul trying to 
pierce the infinite : What of the future, oh! merciful God, is it 
annihilation — is it the dark ? 

What can be said to make the utter agony an hour less in pain ? 
Nothing. There is no need to try. Even love is stronger than 
time, than change of scene, than efforts at forgetfulness, and here 
was adoration. My boy ! my boy ! not my angel, that is the cry 
from every human lip that ever cursed the daylight because death 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 77 

had made it hideous, or clung to an idol's lips, in one passionate 
caress, lips pale, and pinched, and wan, and drawn forever, "The 
Lord gives and the Lord takes away." Hush ! put nothing upon 
the Lord that makes Him merciless, or monstrous, or the slayer of 
the lambs in his own sheep-fold. The lord loves little children. He 
had once a son, whose death, though in the full prime of his heav- 
enly manhood, shook the earth as though hell had risen upon it and 
mastered it, and every accursed murderer upon it was to be given 
back unto the night and chaos. The boy's fate came out of the 
unknown swiftly, and that was all. It is best to believe this, for' 
woe be to the land when its mothers — groping in the dark for their 
children, blind, gasping, crying aloud for help, come face to face 
with a creed which tells them that God took them away. 

As little Nelson Dalby was in the flesh — tender, confiding, 
beautiful — so let him be remembered by his parents and adored until 
the unfathomed gives back its dead to those who seek them there, 
or utter and eternal night its surcease of sorrow and forgetfulness. 
Keep everything his little hands ever touched, and everything that 
ever — as toy or trinket — made his wondering eyes to shine, or the 
red in his cheeks to deepen like a scarlet japonica bud. Never 
mind the future. On this earth are the thorns, the parched high- 
way, the covering up of those faces which give to the heart a hor- 
rible drought. Make of his memory a shrine and worship there as 
flesh worships flesh which is its own. Grief has its luxury. Some- 
thing that is exquisite may be even given to despair. The darling 
is gone and he is not gone. Imagination perpetually renews his 
walk, his talk, his infinite confidences and his good-night kiss that 
will be forever and forever a benediction. 

HENRY CLAY DEAN. 

[Kansas City Times, February 13, 1887.] 

This many-sided intellectual giant — and we refer solely to his 
intellect and his heart in any analysis that may be made of his char- 
acter—has suddenly passed away. He was a strange man in many 
respects, yet one of the most genial and lovable men, when once 
thoroughly understood and appreciated, ever known in Missouri. 
Beneath an exterior which could not always be easily penetrated, 
he carried the conscience of a Christian and the heart of a child. If 
the expression may be permitted he had two natures, that of the 
warrior and that of the priest. The hand that smote upon occasion 
so relentlessly and so remorselessly was no less prompt to soothe, to 
heal and to make whole again. A tale of sorrow moved him to 
instant response. Those who had no friends always found him a 
friend in need. His good deeds were innumerable, and his charities, 
for his means were larger by far than any one supposed; but he 
neither boasted of the first nor claimed for the last any sort of recog- 
nition or approbation. 

Intellectually he was rarely gifted. He was preacher, lawyer, 
politician, public speaker, lecturer, farmer and author. Many qual 
ities went to make up his power before a crowd. He was mighty 
in invective, but it was the invective which came at an adversary 
with a club. Perhaps no man ever used to more advantage the rare 
exquisite gift of irony, and he did with it what few writers or 
speakers of this country have ever yet succeeded in doing— he joined 
with it an indescribable pathos. Hence his power before a jury 
when his intellectual and bis moraluature was aroused, Atothertimes 



78 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

he dealt only in a ponderous kind of logic and ])uilt up liis speeches 
as some mighty triphammer might forge an iron mainmast for a 
man-of-war. His weakness in politics appeared to lie in his want 
of flexibility and plan of battle. He lacked in the capacity of mass- 
ing his forces and seizing instantly upon all the strong points of a 
disputed field. Too much precious time was often wasted upon 
skirmishes that his scouts might have looked after, or upon recon- 
noissances which his captains might have controlled. Gifted as he 
was, these gifts wei-e not at all times homogeneous. With a mind 
as vivid as a dream, rapid in its eucompassments as thought, of won- 
derful grasp, resource and fertility, it yet did not drive forward 
straight to the end, knowing neither variableness nor shadow of 
turning. A pleasant byway was lure enough to take him aside ; a 
rare look put him to dreaming. There were too many unresponsive 
fibers in his individual make-up ever to permit him to become a suc- 
cessful politician. The harness of the caucus so galled his withers 
that he would frequently stop short in the middle of the road, refus- 
ing thereafter to pull a single pound for either love or money. Of 
the stronger and more potent elements of leadership he did not pos- 
sess a single one. Not a few have been the magnificent structures 
he has erected, only to burn them down or blow them up in a moment 
of spleen, or disgust, or uncontrollable indignation. For a hot fight 
under a black flag, where for the wounded there was no surgeon and 
for the dead no sepulcher, he was incomparable. But if strategy 
were required solel}^, if the head alone and not the heart were to dom- 
inate the struggle, if only the cold logistics of mathematical maneu- 
vering were to be permitted to the combatants, he was not the man to 
lead; but what if he could not lead in such a crisis ? It is sometimes 
as vital to destroy as it is to build up. 

He wrote one book — the " Crimes of the Civil War" which was 
fierce, fragmentary, and not unfrequently viciously savage. He 
wrote another — the " Criminals of the Civil War" — which was, if 
anything, fiercer and more savage than the other, but it has never 
been printed. The manuscript was burned at the time his house 
was, some several years ago, together with a library that was 
unequaled in Missouri, and which, with nigh on to 10,000 volumes, 
he had been a lifetime in collecting. His reading was vast, his 
information almost superhuman, and if such a thing could be pos- 
sible, or even half-way possible, he had, as it were, the whole 
recorded history of the world stowed in his mind, and ready to be 
summoned for any purpose at his bidding. Some of his monologues 
were only surpassed by those of Napoleon at St. Helena. When 
the mood was on him he put spells upon people through the sheer 
force of an intellectual necromancy that forced them to listen even 
as the guest to the marriage feast was forced to listen by the ancient 
mariner. 

He loved much to talk of the hereafter. He speculated much 
as to what was beyond the grave. He sought in many ways to pen- 
etrate the future, and to get but one bare glimpse of something real 
and tangible that told of anotlier life. Upon this earth nothing was 
ever vouchsafed to him. Does he know it all now ? 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

[Kansas Cit3^ Time^, March 9, 1887.] 

The blow has fallen at last, and the wizard of the pulpit of 
Plymouth church can no longer conjure a congregation which 



MISCELLANEOUS WKITINGS. 79 

adored him. That sleep came upon him which he had so often 
described, and when he awoke he had solved for himself the great 
problem of the hereafter. How he strove to do this while yet upon 
earth. How from under the dark shadow of restless intellectital 
doubts which come to all men who read and think, and reason, he, 
yearned for a faith that never wavered. How, when he imagined, 
in the fervor of an exalted vision, that he saw the porphyry domes, 
the jasper gates and the golden highways of the New Jerusalem, he 
looked again, but only on a mirage. How, step by step, he sought 
for the soul's immortality through every proof that God, or man, or 
science, or nature, or creed, or conscience, or revealment had fur- 
nished, he has best declared in a mountain of discourses as high as 
Plymouth's steeple. 

Did he find before death came to him that perfect peace which 
can only come from a perfect knowledge? What matters it? He 
lived the life that was in him, and better than that no man can do 
who was ever yet born of woman. 

With Beecher's final faith or belief, however, we have nothing 
to do. That was solely a matter between himself and his Creator. 
The reckoning ah'eady has been had, the score been paid, the re- 
cording angel's book closed for the present ; and somewhere out in 
the wide, white hush of eternity is a freed spirit waiting for the 
resurrection. 

As a preacher he is the most difficult man to analyze, in an 
intellectual way, in the United States. At times he had an almost 
indescribable pathos. Often his irony was superb, but it was the 
irony of a splendid spiritual digestion, and, therefore, as a balm it 
always carried with it a touch of amazing grace. Satire helped him 
upon occasion, but it was not the satire of Ihe scorner and the hater 
— it was rather that of one who was fond of a laugh and fond of a 
story. 

Born actor, his mobile face italicised, as it were, each emotion 
which he wished to make emphatic. Not unfrequently a quaint 
humor played along the edges of his sermons as a sunbeam along the 
edges of a storm cloud. Then the lightnings of some terrible denun- 
ciations would leap forth, and one saw only the darker and more 
somber aspect of the sky. In this he was dramatic, but what is in- 
tense realism at last if it is not vivid contrast, and the swift inter- 
mingling of sunshine and shadow? He surely loved nature as only 
a passionate lover could love her. He took into the pulpit images of 
fields where the green corn stood in serried ranks like lines of infan^ 
try formed for battle; of summer wheat fields, the south wind 
bending their bearded heads as though at the touch of its caressing 
fingers they had bowed as to a benediction; of twilight woods, 
where nest said good-bye to utst in the gloaming; of apple orchards 
white and pink with blossoins; of dewy lanes, where on either 
hand could be heard the weird laughter of the owls in the thickets; 
of bird and tree and bird and leaf and flower and all sorts of 
blessed things which filled the heart with reverenceand made man in 
spite of himself lift up his thoughts from nature to nature's God. 

In the stronger and terser senFC of epigram Mr. Beecher was 
notably lacking. Weak also in pictuiesqueness — that sort of pic- 
turesqueness which can make one hear the flapping of invisible 
wings and the swish or the flow of imaginary waters— he yet had 
what answered almost the same purpose — a quick, entertaining and 
corruscating fancy. Imagination was also wanting — that sort of 
imagination which could make one see a sinner being held up over 
the very mouth of hell and make one smell his very hair scorching. 



30 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAIIDS. 

He could not soar. He never in all his long life, according to our 
estimate of him as a preacher, preached a really strong, terse, mass- 
ive, logical sermon. He could take hold of the heart and do with it 
pretty much what he pleased, but he almost always left the head 
where he found it. He was utterly incapable of building a massive 
edifice of thought, perfect in every arch, beam, door, floor, window 
and rafter — story upon story and stone upon stone ; but he could 
build a beautiful cottage, with lattice-work all about it, and put 
angels into it, and make honeysuckles form a bower for them in which 
to play their harps and wave their palms, and decorate it with all 
(sorts of little nooks aud crannies, and fill these with all sorts of 
quaint rugs and rare books and celestial brick-a-brac generally; 
but for a fortress that the very wiles of the devil himself could not 
prevail against through any force of sap, or siege, or stratagem, or 
cunning — well, some other hands than Mr. Beecher's would have to 
hew out the rock and rear the structure. 

What, then, was his power over his congregation, over his 
audiences, ard over all public bodies with whom became in contact 
or before whom he delivered not only sermons but various other 
kinds of addresses? It was the powerful individuality of the man 
to begin with, buttressed upon an immense vitality, electricity and 
personal magnetism. Then he had pathos, knowledge, dramatic 
capacity in no small degree, all sorts of resources to be summoned 
at a moment's notice for his apt aud apropos illustrations, a forgiv- 
ing charity for the errors and the frailties of poor human nature, an 
appositeness in putting things that, while it is not true eloquence, yet 
does much that real eloquence alone can do — more demagogy than 
appears at first sight, vividness, perspicacity, anecdote, every art of 
a finished actor, ease, grace, the poetry of motion, much elocution, 
and— above all, and beyond all for the purposes for which the gift 
was given— an almost supernatural acquaintance with human 
nature. 

There will be innumerable obituar}^ articles written on the 
death of this famous American pulpit preacher. He will be dis- 
cussed from every conceivable standpoint. He has had his share of 
harsh criticism and indiscriminate laudation. He has gone through 
some fiery ordeals, and as he himself has sometimes said in moments 
of unutterable sadness, the way has seemed to be so dreary and dark, 
and life's burdens so heavy ; but, whatever the final judgment may be 
that his coTmirymen shall pronounce upon him, both as a man and 
as a preacher, this should always precede the verdict: 

In men whom men condemn as ill 

I find so raxich of goodness still, 

In men whom men pronounce divine 

I find so much of sin and blot, 
I hesitate to draw the line, 

Where God has not. 

GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON. 

[Kansas City Times, April 10, 1887.] 

An equestrian statue, erected to the memor}^ of General Albert 
Sidney Johnston, has just been unveiled in New Orleans with heart- 
felt and appropriate ceremonies. Eandall Gibson, who commanded 
a Brigade under him at Shiloh, delivered the memorial address, and 
Jefferson Davis passed in review his life, his military services 
and his spotless character. 

Albert Sidney Johnston was a man whose ability as a com- 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 81 

mander the soldiers of the Civil War will always love to study. They 
never tire of asking, one of another, the following questions: If he 
had lived, would he have driven Grant into the river? If he had 
lived, would he not have been made commander-in-chief of all thfe 
Confederate forces? If he had lived, would he not have finished the 
battle of Sliiloh during the first day's fighting? If he had lived, 
would he have fulfilled the promise of his earlier years, and would 
he finally have become the bulwark and the savior of the Southern 
Confederacy? 

These be hard questions to answer. As the Confederacy was 
organized, it is doubtful if even a Napoleon Bonaparte could have 
saved it. The politicians got hold of it almost before it had put its 
armor on. Nothing would do them but a constitution, a congress, 
a president, a cabinet and a civil administration. Not a single 
leader in the South, bold or otherwise, arose in his place to demand 
a dictator. Secession was a mere juggler's term. Some coiner of 
phrases or quibbler over abstractions invented it. Revolution was 
the word— stark, inexorable, unmistakable revolution. For this 
anything else but a dictator was a criminal absurdity. With a 
president, there would always be an administration and an anti- 
administration party; with a congress, the outs would be eternally 
striving to circumvent the ins : with a constitution, the strict con- 
structionists would do little else but fiddle and dance while Rome 
was burning; with a cabinet, red tape was bound to be a king. A 
general in the field, to get to his chief authority, would have to trav- 
erse as many avenues as there were rat-holes about a granary filled 
with corn. While armies were crying for arms, ammunition, food, 
clothing and medicine, cabinet officers would l3e indexing reports 
and pointing out how every requisition would have to go through 
the regular channels, you know. 

Johnston fought but one battle before he was killed, that of 
Shiloh, and he did not fight that to a finish. Up to the momeu 
when a minie-ball cut the femoral artery of his right leg he had 
everything his own way. His plans were working to perfection. 
The various subdivisions of his army had taken the ground pointed 
out to them, and when the designated hour came had entered 
promptly into the fight. It was not possible for any general to have 
held his forces better in hand. True, it had been his intention to 
begin the attack one day earlier than he actually did begin it. but 
he could not be everywhere at one and the same time, and so, at a 
most critical period, some of his subordinates failed him. But for 
this Buell could never have reached Pittsburg Landing in time to suc- 
cor Grant, no matter whether Johnston had lived or died, nor 
whether Beauregard had or had not called a halt to rearrange his 
lines of battle. 

That Johnston was a man of splendid administrative ability 
none have ever denied. That in a military point of view he showed 
skill of the very highest order in his operations in Kentucky, his 
Federal opponents have borne ample and generous testimony. He 
seems to have known war and to have had a better idea of the exi- 
gencies and the requirements of the struggle than any other com- 
mander who fought for the South. From his writings and from 
some sketches and memoranda of campaigns left behind him, there 
can be no mistake made about the grasp of his intellect, nor of the 
further fact that such was his prescience and his logical acumen 
from the standpoint simply of the soldier that he predicted future 
events with a vividness and directness that the aftertime was to 
prove more than prophetic. 



82 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

As far as it was fought l)y J.)linston, Shiloli was the most perfect 
battle of the war aud tlie most glorious tor the arms aud the prowess 
of the Southern Confederacy. When he fell the contrast came in, 
and from this contrast much may be understood how immeasurably 
he towered above those who succeeded him in the command of the 
Army of the Tennessee. 

KATKOFF. 

[Kansas City Times, April 1, 1887.] 

If the report is true that M. Katkoff, editor of the Moscow 
Gazette, has fallen into deep disgrace with the Czar, then indeed has 
one stormy petrel been brought to the ground with ruflled plumage 
or broken wing. 

In his journalistic make-up he was part Tartar and part Greek, 
that is to say: He rode like a Cossack and glided like a snake. His 
newspaper wore always two masks. Behind the first one could 
invaribly hear the rattling of chains and the swishing of the knout — 
that was for Russia. Behind the second one could always hear an 
air from an opera or the voice of a woman — that was for Europe. 
Remove both, and there was the elegant man of the world — smiling, 
plausible, soft of speech, a rose in his buttonhole and a love knot in 
his hair. It was as one going into a coffin to find a corpse and find- 
ing Adonis. 

The Emperor Nicholas first discovered in the young Katkoff 
those elements of superb pliability and audacity which have made 
more tyrants and more revolutions than any other two elements 
which go to make up the sum of human character. Of course he 
had others, and shining ones, but these two constituted the pick-ax 
and spade with which he worked. The Emperor put him at Mos- 
cow, laying upon Iiim only one injunction: "Be always a ]\Ius- 
covite," that is to say, stand always by the old Russian party as 
against the new. 

And he has. Next to the Czar, himself, Katkoff had more to do 
with bringing on the Crimean War than any other man in Russia. 
He has said things which no other subject alive would ever have 
been permitted to say, and he has written and printed things which 
would have rewarded any other subject alive with Siberia. What- 
ever he has done, however, he has always wrote furiously, and ably 
as well, against Germany and Austria, and in favor of Russia's 
eternal adVance, if it is only one foot a day, toward Constantinople. 
He has had a spy at every capital, nvA surprised, over and over 
again, the most important secrets of half the croAvned heads in 
Europe. He was loved, petted, caressed and ennobled by the father 
of the present Czar, and for a time after Alexander 11. met with so 
horrible a fate, Katkoff was in high favor with his successor. If he 
is now indeed in disgrace it is a mystery, but then, so many mys- 
teries exist in Russia. The night of its despotism is sometimes im- 
penetrable. 



[August 7, 1887.] 
So Katkoff, the great Russian editor, is dead. When death 
stripped him of his harness and flung it furiously aside in the lists 
where they had struggled month after month for the mastery, it 
rang out no louder tiiMU the blow of a wooden sword-blade upon a 
wooden buckler. A brief paragraph was all that was vouchsafed 
him in the American newspapers by way of obituary, and save in 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 83 

his own land and liis own city his passing away was but little more 
accounted of than the folding of the hands in sleep. 

When Mary died, the Mary whom the slanderous Froude called 
bloody, she said : "If you will examine my heart you will find the 
word Calais written thereon." And Nelson said: " For my epi 
taph put this — died from a want of frigates." And if Katkoff's 
heart could have been examined also that, too, might have had 
stamped upon it indelibly — Constantinople. 

For fifty years his one long, fiery interminable text was Con- 
stantinople. We can never become powerful as a nation, he has 
thundered out ten thousand times through the columns of his news- 
paper, until we get to the sunshine and the sea. Do not call the 
Black Sea a sea. For half the year it is a lake, frozen as hard as 
the solid earth — aye, as the rock which is crowned with the cannon 
of Gibraltar, It is the Mediterranean which will forever go to 
make up the warp and the wool of Russia's destiny. 

When Peter the Great was dying, sometimes delirous and some- 
times in a stupor, he would have brief intervals when the clouds 
would roll away from that strangely perturbed brain of his, and the 
shadows recede far enough to give him a glimpse of the light that 
still abode upon all the world. Then he would cry out to those 
about him : " Kever take your eyes from Constantinople. I com- 
mand you upon your loyalty, your honor and your love for Russia, 
to never take your eyes from Constantinople." 

Perhaps that word might also have been found written upon his 
heart, if, indeed, this savage Tartar — fisherman, shipbuilder, archi- 
tect, assassin, pope, czar and epileptic — ever had a heart. 

To that dying command of the wonderful barbarian Katkoff 
devoted his whole life. Since it was given, Russia has five separate 
and distinct times come within sight of the spires and the minarets 
of Constantinople, the domes of its mosques and the monuments to 
its heroes; but banded Europe, England at the head, threw itself 
in front of the conquering columns, and stayed the hand that had 
almost closed about the prize. 

Baffled, and made aged in his prime at each successive defeat, 
Katkoff would begin anew the preaching of another crusade. He 
must have been a statesman, because he was patient and knew how 
to wait. He must have been a politician, because the people's pulse 
to him was always as a barometer. He must have been a leader, 
because after he knelt at the feet of the iron-hearted Nicholas for a 
blessing, a pale faced, stoop-shouldered, shrinking, scarcely articu- 
late man, fresh from the academy, when he arose he was a giant. 
He must have been a poet as Beranger was, because in the white 
heat and torment of some of the fiercest charges at Plevna, the 
grenadiers of the guard went on singing one of his battle hymns 
set to music. 

Furthermore, and for the benefit of those superlatively superb 
patriots of our own Civil War who seem to have forgotten everything 
else connected with it except a doctor's certificate of disability and 
a pension, Katkoff wasone of the most devoted friends and elo- 
quent advocates the cause of the Union had. It was owing largely 
to his counsels that the Russian fleet broke out of the Black Sea and 
anchored in American waters, pending the settlement of the Mason- 
Slidell-Trent affair, when England showed so much passion and Mr. 
Seward so much common sense. 

The Moscow Gazette , Katkoff's newspaper, must have been a 
power in Russia. It was the idol of the old Muscovite party, which 
leaped full-statured and full-armored from the loins of Ivan the 



84 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Terrible. This party never stirred, nor lifted a hand, nor gave 
forth responses to a single appeal until Katkoff passed along its lines 
and tired them, as a torch passing along will tire a line of ready 
gaslights. We know of no newspaper which ever before had so 
much power and audacity, nor have we ever read of one. Perhaps 
none could exist outside of such a despotism as Russia's. When the 
savage hour was on Nicholas, none could get to him quicker than 
Katkolf, nor soothe him more completely. More than to any other 
man, save Alexander II., did the serfs owe their emancipation. As 
he hated black slavery, so he hated white, and so his voice was lifted 
up against the forms of it in his own country. We say the forms 
of it because the substance remains. There are still the dungeons, 
the knout and Siberia. 

France also has lost a devoted friend. _ Ever since the Crimean 
war he has demanded an alliance offensive and defensive with 
France, offering Egypt to France if France would help Russia to 
Constantinople. There can be little doubt that Russian counsels 
were back of Boulanger, and Russian army corps in readiness for 
materialization, Katkoff could not know that he was leaning on a 
reed, and that fine clothes and gold lace and a cocked hat and 
heroic words could never make a general. 

Perhaps the great editor died too soon. He might have lived to 
see the next European conflagration, to help on which and to lead up 
to which he has brought more tar, pitch and turpentine than any 
other one hundred men in all Europe. 

A FISH STORY. 

[Kansas City Times, March 17, 1887.] 

There are just nine hundred and ninety-nine chances out of one 
thousand that nobody attempted to kill the Ozar last Sunday; that 
nobody held a dynamite bomb in his hand ; that the whole story is 
bald and barren and bogus; that whatever there is to it at all was 
born of an Oriental imagination, qualified by that all-pervading blood 
mania which belongs to the absolute right of Russian despotism. 

Look for but just a moment how absurd and ridiculous the cable 
dispatches are. It was semi-oflQcially stated that an attempt might 
be made on the life of the Czar. That several persons were arrested 
near the palace with dynamite bombs in their hands. That no 
actual attempt was made to kill him. That a bomb attached to a 
cord was thrown in his direction, the intention being to tighten a 
string which was fastened to its mechanism, but before the said 
string could be tightened the would-be assassin, laboring under the 
disadvantages of holding a very loose string in his hand, was seized. 
That the bomb, still with this very loose string, was shaped like a 
book. That one of ,the students arrested in connection with the 
plot also had a bomb shaped like a book. That a woman with a 
bomb in her muff, probably not shaped like a book, was also 
arrested. That on Monday every suspicious person who had been 
arrested had been released except one. 

That this one was of short stature, and would not talk, and that 
the Czar himself, w^hen he came fully to understand what an escape 
he had made, cried bitterly— he the great big six-foot booby, a 
monarch, and a lineal descendent of Peter the Great and Ivan the 
Terrible. What slush, what jargon and what absurdity! That the 
Czar has many a subject who would like to kill him — thousand upon 
thousands of them— no well-informed student of history doubts for 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 85 

a momeDt; but death lias never yet been known to make itself ridic- 
ulous. Men, with dynamite bombs in their hands do not go gali- 
vautiug about the streets of St. Petersburg. It has never yet been 
recorded that women carried them about in muffs. Of course it is 
clearly understood that in many of the sad, subtle, and more merci- 
less tragedies of the past, wherever the weaving was the darkest or 
the most somber, its warp and its woof could be traced clearly to a 
woman's hand; but then they always sang a song or two like Circe 
before the}" slaughtered. Was not Delilah's lad a pillow for Samp- 
son, and her dusky hair above him like a canopy, before his own 
long locks were shred awaj^ and he was turned over, helpless and 
blinded, to his enemies? 

Finally, our faith is abiding that if the Czar comes no nearer to 
death than he was last Sunday, England will yet hear the Russian 
drums 

Beat at the gates of Candahar. 

PROHIBITION. 

[Kansas City Times, February 13, 1887], 

In voting to indefinitely postpone all prohibition legislation — . 
call it by the name of submission, if you please, that sleek, sly, 
slinking wolf, with the soft wool of the best of the flock yet thick 
in its teeth — the Missouri senate has done well. It took by the 
throat the most vicious and disastrous species of legislation ever 
introduced into a Democratic general assembly, and strangled it 
with as little compunction of conscience as if it had been a snake. 
In politics, as in inundations, what a blessed thing it is sometimes to 
have a breakwater. The high, full, serene courage of conviction is 
rare in the land, and is, perhaps, growing rarer. Demagogy — that 
accursed ulcer which has eaten the life out of more republics than 
Leonidas had Greeks to defend the pass of Thermopyla? — has as- 
sailed Missouri fiercely of late, and swept over too many of its fair 
and fertile political places. To every ism which came along too 
many sturdy old Democrats knelt and sought to turn away its wrath 
as if it had been a murdering giant. To a man upon his knees every 
attacking enemy is a giant. Wnat was greatly needed in the pres- 
ent prohibition crisis was simple to make the Democrats get up from 
an attitude which was cowardly, cringing and degrading. They 
knew that submission meant prohibition, and that prohibition would 
make out of the people of the State a people of liars, sneaks and 
hypocrites. They knew also further that prohibition did not prohibit. 

They knew also still further that if prohibition prevailed in 
Missouri — even though qualified, as in Kansas, by the obsequious 
probate judge and the all-accommodating and all-embracing 
drug store — the State would be torn from its Democratic moorings 
and given over rudderless and dismasted, to the pirates of the 
greedy and remorseless opposition. They saw women — whose 
babies at home were crying for the milk of maternal breasts, and 
whose dirty and unkept bodies pleaded for the work of maternal 
hands — haunting the lobbies of the Legislature, glib with their little 
hoard of Mayflower maxims, preaching down Missouri laws and 
habits and customs, and smiling the sweet, elephantine smile of the 
frowzy female reformer every time some old one-gallus Democrat 
would become thoroughly impregnated with the new religion, and 
yell for more prohibition straw about the mourner's bench as though 
he were in a Sam Jones' circus, with the sisters all a shouting, and 



85 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

the new recruits beating their breasts and tearing their hair, as 
though the "hell serpents" had them already, even as they had old 
Parson Bullen when Sut Lovingood poked the lizards up the two 
legs of his breeches. They read a little pamphlet — scattered thicker 
than the vine leaves were ever scattered by the nymphs of Bacchus, 
when naked to the knees they trampled the grapes of the God-given 
vintage — a pampLilet wherein was retailed all the partisan slanders 
upon "poor old Missouri," and wherein also might be found the 
false and somewhat startling assertion that whatever of wealth, 
civilization and development might be contained in the full flow of 
a flood tide of emigration was all passing by "drunken and whisky 
Missouri" and finding a sure and contended lodgment in sober, 
pious and prohibition Iowa and Kansas. 

Too many Democrats, we say, saw all these things, and heard 
all these things, and read all these things, andyetthey never whim- 
pered; the unfortunates, they did worse ; they indorsed everything 
said to the detriment of Missouri, because they trailed at the bedrag- 
gled skirts of the women who had the slanders printed, and rocked 
and crooned over the cradle in a lullaby voice that might have made 
a panther dumb, wherein was jabbering that bastard and misbegot- 
ten infant called submission. But the Democratic Senate came to 
the rescue and tumbled about the cars of its builders and into a vast 
mass of rubbish all the sham, pretense, lying-in-wait, deceit, false- 
hood, and hypocrisy of a dozen accumulated years of snuffle and 
cant and wheeze. It only needed some such stroke as this^bold, 
umistakable and patriotic— to bring the timid and the wavering 
Democrats everywhere to their senses, to make them grope again 
through the darkness of their temporary betrayal until they find the 
old landmarks of the party ,to go again to the teachings of thefathers 
as to an altar, there to confess their sins, abjure the disreputable 
political associates of the new faith and plead to the august shade of 
him who wrote our Magna Charta for the peace that can only come 
from a perfect absolution. 

As for the Times, it stands to-day where it has alwaysstood, and 
where it stood in its declaration of principles years ago — utterly 
opposed to every form and species of prohibition. High license and 
local option is its platform at the present, just as it has been from 
the beginning. It believes in temperance as much as it believes in 
the laws which govern, regulate and protect human society. It 
believes that temperance should begin at the fireside; that parents 
should teach it to their children; that the preachers of the gospel 
should embody it in their sermons, and insist upon it in all their 
devout and holy ministrations; that local enactments should become 
its intelligent ally; that the saloon should not be driven from the 
street to the private residence; that alcohol drinking may be regu- 
lated, but never extirpated; that civilization brings Mith it certain 
evils or vices which have to be dealt with in a spirit of tolerant, not 
of violent, firmness or aggression, and that where history, illustra- 
tion, comparison and example all teach us that prohibition does not 
prohibit, it would be a species of folly but little better than a crime 
to attempt its introduction into a State, the large majority of whose 
people hate the very sources from which it sprang, and who are not 
yet prepared to swap the principles of a lifetime for smuggled beer 
and drug-store whisky. 

[May 16, 1887.] 
A valued correspondent writes to know what the chances are 
for the prohibitionists to carry Texas, and to ask if the support reu- 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 87 

dered to them by Senator Reagan will not help them in a greater 
de.a^ree than could othewise have been expected. 

The prohibitionists never had any chances in Texas to begin 
with, and it is altogether useless to speculate upon them now. Never 
having existed, there is nothing to discuss. Texas is a peculiar 
State in many ways. It has three zones, three climates, three ter- 
ritorial empires, and three world staples — sugar, cotton and cattle. 

One would scarcely suppose so, but Texas is also an exceedingly 
cosmopolitan State ; made so by its very immensity. Tolerance is 
indigenous there because of that exalted idea of personal or individ- 
ual freedom which finds its highest type and its most exalted 
expression in range, latitude, boundlessness. Liberty exists there 
because of its immense cattle ranches and grazing grounds. 

To find prohibition in its perfect form and essence one must go 
where population is concentrated. Where the mases are dense 
enough to hunt for a master, as all dense masses do. Where dema- 
gogues swarm, forage and litter. Where familiarity breeds con- 
tempt and contempt expresses itself in upheaval. Where anything 
that is stable is hateful, and where the thing called progress is inter- 
preted to mean nobody's rights but yourow^n. Where civilization 
can neither advance nor retreat, and where, for the want of some 
sort of exercise to prevent social putridity, it is often found avail- 
able to resort to proscriptive politics. Prohibition thrives in Maine 
because its administrative life is dank, stagnant, finished , in Iowa, 
because its life is that of Plymouth rock — harsh, sterile, proselyting, 
greedy for strife ; in Kansas, because its life is of the Mayflower — 
canting, morose, insincere and brutal ; if each could not war on 
whisky it would be on something else. The race to which either 
belongs in all the world's history has been a race of bigotry, psalm- 
singing and spoils. 

Prohibition in Texas would be the same as aloes in sugar or 
cologne in a pig pen — an absurd anachronism. When a man in 
Texas goes to fooling with his neighbor's landmark, they put him to 
death. In Iowa they make him either a judge or a preacher. When 
a man in Texas begins to prescribe certain fixed metes and bounds 
wherein his neighbor shall walk and conduct himself, he is either 
lassoed or scalped. In Kansas, after runniug away with somebody 
else's wife, he would be sent to congress. Hence, our valued cor- 
respondent can readily see what sort of a show the average prohibi- 
tionist would have in Texas. 

And Senator Reagan? And Senator Reagan's influence? 
Neither the man nor his influence, in the sense that he could make 
one hair of the prohibition head in Texas either white or black, is 
worth the price of a mustasg pony. He is a good soul enough, but 
he labors under one disadvantage — that of not knowing that he does 
not amount to anything. He is one of Texas' fossils left over from 
the Southern Confederacy. Should he get drowned in the Brazos, 
his contiguous water course, his neighbors as a mass would look up 
stream for his bod}^ As a pre- Adamite he will do just about as 
well as the Alamo, with this difference in favor of the Alamo — it 
has a substantial fence around it. To size up Reagan in the light 
of his own self-appreciation and then fencehim round would require 
a county. Hence they just let him run at large, a powerful squealer, 
but quite harmless. 



88 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

ON DEMOCRACY. 

[Kansas City Times, January 24, 1887.] 

TO BE KILLED AGAIN. 

Prophets of evil are abroad in the land: 

First a speck and then a vulture, 
Till the air is dark with pinions. 

Everywhere in the darkness there can be heard the flappiDgof 
invisible wings and the whetting of insatiable beaks. It is the Dem^ 
ocratic party which is to be slaughtered again and picked to the 
bones. And by whom? By what process? Through what sort of 
revolutionary uprising or upheaval? 

The new labor party, already as good as formed, is to be the 
butcher, a white apron above its paunch and its feet to the knees 
dabbled in great pools of blood. The republican orators have 
decreed it. The Republican newspapers have proclaimed it. All 
that servile crowd of camp followers, who find private benefit in 
public disorders and who prefer the favor of a master to the inex- 
orable equality of the law, are praying for it hourly. Blaine has 
declared it with something of the apocalyptic vision the pirate had 
when he saw in his dreams a Spanish galleon beating up from the 
Indies with a clear king's ransom in silver^and gold. 

Well, the old thing called the Democratic party has been con- 
siderably bruised and battered up in its day and generation. It has 
been proscribed, bedeviled, shot at, carpet-bagged, pro-consuled, 
hunted up one side of the country and down another; but when 
they came with a coffin to carry away the corpse the corpse was 
not forthcoming. All of its long and memorable life it has been 
always just on the eve of destruction. Federalism was to put it to 
death. ' Federalism was buried in the grave of the elder Adams. 

The Whig party — its pure, its true and its strongest opponent 
— came next to die with its mighty leader, Clay. Knownothingism 
came next, fighting under the black banner of religious intolerance, 
but Virginia, putting into the hands of Henry A. Wise her spotless 
Democratic banner, slew the monster at the very gates of liberty. 

Then the war came, and the very blackness of darknef^s swept 
over the fortunes of the Democracy. Out of the while heat and 
torment of that war the Republican party seized upon the Korth in 
the name of patriotism, and held it for the spoils of a savage 
partisan vengeance. The South had never a limb tbat did rot 
wear a shackle For twenty-four long, wearj^, hungry, discoESO- 
late years the Democratic party dragged its crippled body up 
to the defense of the Constitution, only to be beaten back or beaten 
down by the Republican organization, rioting in the excess of 
colossal strength, drilled like a regiment and despotic like an army. 
True, within the period named Mr. Tilden was elected president, 
but the victory was a hateful one, because it was torn from the 
hands of those who had won it without an effort at defense or even 
a suggestion of protest or resistance. Four years later Garfield — 
buttressed upon the money power, and the whole tremendous 
influence of the Federal patronage machine — defeated Hancock, and 
made the night darker and darker for the Democracy. It rallied, 
however. Patched as best it could its tattered old garments. 
Dressed as best it could its battered old ranks. Gathered as best it 
could about its rag;:ed old banner, and rushed once more to the 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 89 

asasult upon Radicalism as though Jefferson had written its platform 
and Jackson were leading its columns to the fight. This time the 
hero was destimed to enjoy the victory and the martyr to wear the 
crown. Not a hand was lifted to stay the inauguration of Cleve- 
land. After renewing its youth the party was back again in the 
house of its father — serene, unconquerable, and healed of all of its 
grievous and manifold wounds, even as Lazarus was healed in the 
bosom of Abraham. 

While attempting to prove the indestructibility of the Demo- 
cratic party from the brief history we have given of the organiza- 
tions it has successfully encountered, the sacrifices it has made and 
the sufferings it has heroically endured, we have said nothing of the 
no less formidable enemies it has had to grapple within many of the 
States. Whatever sprang up in the shape of an ism, a craze, or a 
local uprising, there was the Democratic party, square in the breach, 
fighting the one long, eternal fight for the repose and the integrity 
of the national organization. It might be greenbacki&m, or tad- 
poleism, or prohibition, or whatever other name these emeutes went 
by, the party set its face against them like a flint, and sooner or 
later carted them ail away to the potter's field, many a time without 
even a shroud or a coffin. And now the cry is that organized labor 
is to kill the Democratic party. WUiat for, in the name of common 
sense and the simplest instincts of common self protection? If the 
Democratic party from the very first hour of its creation up to the 
present hour has not been the friend of the laboring man, then kill 
it. If it has not, both In and out of Congress, fought every kind and 
species of monopoly, kill it. If it has not stood as a wall against 
every land grant, grab or steal, and every extravagant appropriation, 
kill it. If it has not been a constitutional party in every bone and 
fiber, seeking to preserve home rule and States' rights in their very 
essence and purity, without which no republic can be long free, 
kill it. If, in short, it has not been the steadfast and unselfish friend 
of the oppressed, no matter by whom, or how, or in what fashion, 
kill it. But if, after having been all these things, there is a single 
honest workingman to-day in the country who would vote to destroy 
the Democratic party, that same workingman would murder his 
father. Parricide is parricide, whether political or social, and a 
party of parricides is as impossible in America as that an immacu- 
late soul, washed white in the blood of the Lamb, should not enter 
heaven. 

NOT MEN ENTIRELY. 

[Kansas City Times, March 8, 1887.] 

In adversity the attitude of the Democratic party was superb. In 
six desperate presidential campaigns did it drag its battered and 
crippled old limbs up to an assault upon the Republican party — that 
splendidly organized party born of the Civil War, the spoiled child of 
pillage and the sword, intrenched in the treasury, claiming to own 
the nation by the divine right of Appomattox Court House, hobnob- 
bing with God Almighty in its platforms, and calling Him boss, with 
the reconstruction tegis over it as a yellow flag over a hospital — six 
times, we say, did the Democracy rush to the fight, successful only 
in its last encounter with the giant of Radicalism. It was a gaunt 
and grizzled old thing, this Democratic party. It had hungered and 
thirsted for a long time. It had laid out of nights, and slept in corn 
shocks, and gone barefooted many times, and had cockleburrs in its 
hair, and needed quinine powerful bad for its "ager shake," and 



90 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

spoke a strange gibberish about the Constitution, and wanted to 
know where its little Meenie, called States' rights, was ; but, God 
bless it ! it was the same old glorious Rip at heart who had gone up 
into the mountain, singing like a school boy and jocund like a 
reveler. 

And now what? Nothing, except that it has got fat again. In 
renewing its youth it has become somewhat obstreperous. The old 
house appears to be a little bit circumscribed. The old political 
family Bible appears to have been revised. Some of its chapters 
appear to have been interpolated with chapters on prohibition. The 
niche where once stood the radiant figure of the Constitution is filled 
with a gutta percha thing, chiseled by the hands of congressional 
jobbers, and made to cover every appropriation from a silk milch 
cow up to an ironclad which can not go to sea. As for States' rights, 
an overflowing public treasury put its velvet paw upon it, and ever 
since the contact it has purred at the feet of power as the little 
white mice purred and purred in the velvety hands of Count Fosco. 
Many saints have been persecuted and many martyrs stoned. In 
short, the Democratic party appears to be in a transition period — 
appears to be about changing front in presence of the enemy — some- 
tliing which Hannibal never attempted and which Bonaparte dared 
not do but thrice in his lifetime. 

This condition of things, however, is not calculated to encour- 
age the opposition so much as to make its own old guard lukewarm 
or indifferent. The old Democratic party regarded the individual as 
the unit of society, upon the integrity of which society depended 
wholly. The personal liberty of the citizen. Jefferson and his 
associates drove the Federal party out of power on this issue, which 
was fundamental in the struggle which gave us our free government, 
and which produced the Constitution. As was the citizen so was the 
State. The State began at the family. Children were taught at the 
fireside to love it, to fight for it, to obeys its laws, to revere its 
institutions and to preserve for it every right guaranteed by the con- 
stitution. Hence the doctrine of States' rights, which once made 
the Democracy so dear to the people. Which gave to it its magnifi- 
cent staying qualities, which enabled it to be grand in victory and 
august in defeat, and which, as contradistinguished from Federalism 
or centralization, made it essentially the party of the poor man and 
the pride of every true lover of liberty in the whole land. 

If it would still retain its hold upon the country it must come 
back to first principles. It must show that it is fit to reign by stamp- 
ing upon its administration the features of the great organic law 
under which it was created. To do this it must be economical in the 
handling of public money. It must get rid of the idea, as soon as 
possible, that this is a paternal government, and that whenever there 
is either a flood, a drouth, a, murrain among cattle, a splenetic fever, 
or a fever of any sort, the only cure is to open the treasury doors. 

It must extirpate mugwumpery in its own ranks by putting a 
Simon-pure Democrat in every Federal office in the United States. 
It must go oftener to the shrine of Andrew Jackson and less to the 
living presence of those independent fellows wdio strive a lifetime to 
take the backbone out of American politics and invent new names 
for party fealty, truth and devotion. 

There is yet plenty of time to do all those things, but theymust 
be done thoroughly and in perfect order. The place to begin is in 
the next Congress. The Democrats have a majority in the House, 
and upon the work of this majority much will depend that is not 
now believed in or even imagined. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 91 

EYERY TUB ON ITS OWN BOTTOM. 

[Kansas City Times, July 17, 1887.] 

It makes not one particle of difference whether the labor party- 
does or does not put a presidential ticket in the field. We take it 
for granted that it will. Or the Henry George party. We take it 
for granted that it will. Or the prohibition party. We take it for 
granted that it will; but it does make a wonderful sight of diiler 
ence what the Democratic party proposes to do in the premises. 

Let these various organizations do as they please. This is a free 
country, and the greater the multiplicity of parties, we suppose, tlie 
greater the magnitude of personal or political liberty. Parties are 
everything in a republic. In France there are some twenty odd, 
probably. 

However, all this, the Democratic party has only itself to 
depend upon primarily for success in 1888. !Some great overmas- 
tering principle must be enunciated by it, and so emphasized as to 
carry conviction home with it and make it also fragrant and allur- 
ing with the truth. Nothing that is f ast-and-loose, hot-or-cold , may- 
be-so-yes or may-be-so-no can live an hour in the winds and the 
storms of the next campaign. Questions have arisen which have 
got to be answered, and the Democratic party must give its answer 
in such a way as will make the dust of old Andrew Jackson quicken 
and stir in its last resting place. Platforms generally are milk and 
cider. They mean broadcloth or blue jeans. Big sunflowers or 
scarlet japonicabuds. Something that is soft, pliant and easy to 
handle. Something that suggests: 

"Let me tangle my hand in your hair, Jeane^te; 
It is soft as the tloss of the silk, my pet." 

But in the next national Democratic platform there must be 
two or three planks which need to be all iron. No metaphor. No 
lullaby rhetoric, singing a soft, low song at the cradle of interpreta- 
tion. No apple plucked and pitched into the committee on resolu- 
tions by Henry Watterson to be pared by Mr. Randall until it might 
be a peach, or a quince, or an ivory billiard ball. Our country at 
last has come face to face with the necessity of few words and many 
deeds. The prayers now put up must be like Sir Richard Waller's 
riding down to Naseby : "O, Lord ! Thou knowest how busy I naust 
be this day. If I forget Thee, do Thou not forget me. March on, 
boys." 

It is not necessary for the Democratic party to do aught else 
except to deal frankly and justly with the people. In many directions 
they seem somewhat bewildered. Beset by a multitude of recruiting 
officers for all sorts of organization, they simply need to be made 
able to lay hands upon Democracy. Therefore its organization must 
be perfect; its discipline of the old days; its platform the law and 
the gospel; its declarations patriotic but adamant, and its every 
movement that of something which is being led and guided by the 
Constitution. 

Three times in the history of this republic has the Democratic 
party prevented a change in its present form of government. As for 
labor it has given it everything it now possesses in the way of hearty 
recognition, liberal laws and strong safeguards to prevent the least 
encroachment. Since it was created it has been especially the party 
of the poor man and the stranger. It has nothing to fear from hon- 
est labor, although there may be fifty so-called labor tickets in the 



92 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

iield, and all working against it. Let all things else go except a full 
and perfect reliance upon its own resources. Call back its old time 
energy and discipline, and the people will do the rest. 

BOURBON DEMOCRACY. 

[Kansas City Times, May 22, 1888.] 

One hears much of this term lately. It is as glib in the mouths 
of certain republican men and newspapers as the forked tongue in 
the mouth of a snake. And just as glibly does it dart in and out, 
by its rapidity something like a nerve that jumps and throbs under 
galvanism, and something like a cut-throat in ambush where the 
hedge is thickest, or the road the most lonely and God-forsaken, 

In their estimation Bourbon Democracy means to pull down ; 
burn school-houses; retrograde; have here and there a touch of 
the thumb-screw ; the rack also upon occasions ; proscription always ; 
guerrillas out in the underbrush; all the better if a few train 
robbers ride and raid; breaking into the strong places where the 
public money is kept; chaos; no more law and order; no more 
jails; the Rebels in the saddle; and no pitch hot in any available 
direction. 

The truth about Bourbonism in Missouri is just this: It got 
its name from the fact that it would not steal in the old days, 
nor disfranchise, nor break into meeting-houses to deprive other 
denominations of their property, nor confiscate railroads, nor run 
away with county funds, nor be generally unclean, despicable and 
dishonest. 

True, a Bourbon Democrat delighted in the past. He believed 
in the old-fashioned way of doing things. He lived in peace with 
his neighbors. He burnt neither their hay, their "wheat nor their 
straw stacks. Nor was one ever known to break into a smoke-house. 
He believed in the family, and taught his children to rely upon it 
as the basis of all society, the foundation upon which the State rested, 
the bulwark against which all the Cossacks in the world could not 
prevail when Ihey came to attack civil and religious liberty. He 
liked his dram and got the best that was going. No Puritanical 
processes invaded his sanctuary, preaching free love on the one hand 
and prohibition on the other. Virtue was a shrine at which all 
the brave Missourians worshiped. The seducer, before the lust had 
died out of his heart, died on his own dunghill. 

The Bourbon Democrat was also a pastoral American. He 
hunted, fished, plowed, loved the woods, laughed and sang at his 
work, indulged much in reverie, which is the parent of sadness, did 
not know how to lie, never knew the road to Canada with his stolen 
goods and chattels, would have put his wife or daughter to death 
before permitting either to work or vote at the polls, the one with the 
straddle or the waddle of an alligator on land, the other with the 
leer or the musky smell of the street walker. 

What a happy commonwealth, this great one of ours! Peace, 
plenty, prosperity, happiness, truth, manhood, courage, money^ in 
bank, thoroughbreds in pastures, the devil beyond the Alleghanies, 
and each man's fireside his altar and his citadel. 

One day the sky grew suddenly black as one of Pharoah's 
Egyptian midnights. In the darkness there were heard the footsteps 
of men in motion. The travail of civil war was at hand and por- 
tentious births came everywhere to the surface. The face of Mis- 
souri changed as suddenly as the maps Napoleon used to make of 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 93 

Europe wlien he would inundate it like a mountain torrent from the 
Rhine to the Vistula. iStrange animals got in. A hybrid thing, 
called a registrar, was it not— one-half Bashi Bazouk and the other 
half horse stealer or blackmailer, went about with his little thing- 
gum-bo d ballot boxes to cheat, to rob, to ensnare, to betray, to dis- 
franchise the Bourbon Democrats. These registrars had armed 
guards. They knew a mule on the other side of a mountain. Fine, 
fat Durhams made their mouths so water as to cause one to think 
mad dogs had been about. It was not the drooling and dripping of 
mercury, but the vims of carpet-baggery, robbery and innate scoun- 
drelism. In this condition this salivation was saturnalia. 

The man who would not take the oath to forswear his people, 
his kindred and his blood was a Bourbon Democrat. So also was 
the man who defended his stable with a shotgun. So also were the 
men Bourbon Democrats who organized a body-guard for Frank 
Blair when on his blessed tour of enfranchisement, and smote the 
beggars and the bulldozers hip and thigh at Warrensburg and at 
Marshall. So also were all the people who would not put collars 
on their necks and chains around their ankles. 

Then there came another day when all this hierarchy of looters, 
proscriptionists and thieves was tumbled down in one working and 
squirming mass together. The blue-bottle flies had found their 
carrion, and from that hour to this the carcass has never known a 
resurrection. 

Hence, when a term is to be applied of particular odium, as is 
supposed by some of these leavings of the old carpet-bag days, the 
person so banded against is called a Bourbon Democrat. Hence also 
the virulence with which Morehouse is being attacked, and Glover 
and Claiborne and many more who are in the field as candidates 
upon the Democratic ticket. 

Very well! It is an honor higher than the grand cross of the 
Legion of Honor itself. Hunted, proscribed, shot at, robbed, over- 
ridden, swallowed up, who is on top to-day? The Bourbons, bless 
God, as they are understood to be by their Republicanrevilers. And 
look at the hands of these very same Bourbons. Are they not 
clean? They never stole a railroad nor appropriated money that 
belonged to some office of trust and responsibility; never broke 
into churches, never murdered a righteous minister of the gospel, 
never drove off other people's mules, horses, oxen, sheep, hogs and 
cattle in droves, never tore jewelry from the ears and fingers of 
women; but it is on top, we tell you, with victory on every one of 
its banners which flies to the wind, a president in the White House 
and Blaine, the speckled gentleman, betwixt the devil and the deep 
sea. 

A VERY PLAIN REMEDY. 

[Kansas City Times, February 36, 1889.] 

Representative Democrats from all portions of the State have 
just met in St. Louis to consider the ways and means of a practical 
and thorough reorganization of the party. Any political caucus or 
convention which the Hon. Champ Clark, of Pike county, presides 
over and addresses, commends itself at once not alone to the con- 
fidence but to the active support of the entire Democracy of Missouri. 
Young as he is, he is possessed of that kind of progressive ardor and 
all prevading faith which removes mountains. In the lares and pen- 
ates of his political household there are only the gods of his fathers. 

The results of the late election showed all too plainly that the 



94 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Democratic party in IMissouri was sick — sick enough to call in a 
doctor. Its malady came from a tamperlDg with too many poisons. 
It had wandered lar atield from the spot where stood many of its 
ancient landmarks. It had stopped too long to dally with Circe, and 
all too long to make love to the sirens. y\ olf tracks might be seen 
all about iis premises. Many of its gods were mere pinchbeck or 
putty. Its leadership went by the name of nincompoopery or no 
good. It was everything for men and nothing for principle. The 
old guard was forced in many instances to give place to conscripts. 
About many of the camp tires there was eitiier dearth, desolation or 
absolute night. ISome of its martyrs were stoned, some of its saints 
were crucified, and some of its heroes were put lo death. 

Change appeared to have laid its poiluiing hands upon ever}^- 
thing that should have been held sacred and inviolable. Men who 
had never been Democrats aspired to gushing and garrulous 
supremacy in the way of organization Political tramps — pointing 
to a certain glib unction of speech ix-ijyrima facie evidence of their 
right to till pulpits and pose as meek and lowly preachers of the 
gospel of Christ — got thick among the chinaware and the crockery- 
ware of the Democracy, and did more devilment in one year than so 
many bulls of Bashan could have done in ten. Emotional women 
— sometimes unfrocked and alvA^ays unsexed — got among the one 
suspendered, and so ogled and ogled andso manipulated and manip- 
ulated them, that in three days they brought each to the verge 
of insanity, so making him scowl at his wife, his companion for 
forty years, the blameless mother of six grown up children, with a 
hideous expression of carving-knives and strychnine. Laws, that 
the people had been living under peacefully and prosperously for 
forty 'years, were changed with the rapidity of the tigures in a 
kaleidoscope. Each session of tbe Legislature exuded from its 
lowest depths, which is demagogy, cartload upon cartload of oint- 
ments, unguents and healing things, so that the plan of salvation 
might be done away wnth, and the great marquee of the millennium 
pitched upon the blue grass about the capitol buildings. Thecourts 
also took a hand from the lowest to the highest, and as a result of 
all these came gloom, disgust, sullenness, an indifference almost sui- 
cidal, an apathy which froze like a Dakotian blizzard as it fell, a 
great pulling apart from a lack of cohesiveness, a great falling away 
because of a scowling demoralization black as a night with a tem- 
pest in it— and, finally, an almost overwhelming defeat at the 
polls. 

We name no names and we make neither a crimination nor a 
recrimination. We have simply pointed out the wounds upon the 
body of the Democratic part3" — 3"ttaU unhealed and bleeding— and 
crj' aloud for that blessed balm w-e know to be still somewhere 
abiding in this our political Gilead. 

And now what about a remedy for it alj — a remedy for organiza- 
tion at its ebb, discipline shattered, querulousness and fault-finding 
everywhere, four congressmen lost, a bare working majority in the 
Lower Houseof the Legislature, and some splendid Democratic parties 
torn from their hitherto steadfast moorings and given over, rudder- 
less and dismasted to the wreckers and spoilers of the great political 
deep? 

A very plain remedy is nigh at hand — come back to first prin- 
ciples. The present general assembly of Missouri, Democratic in 
both branches, can do this vitally necessary and inestimable work. 
Resolutions are all very well in their way, but, like fine words, they 
butter no parsnips. Such meetings as the one just held in St. Louis, 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 95 

if they do no good can at least do no harm. The masses, however, 
want acts not words. If the present general assembly will show to 
the State that it is a dignilietl, economical, practical body, opposed 
to every form and feature of experiment in legislation; proscriptive 
in no single degree and in no single given direction; willing to live 
• and let live; that it means to purge its lobbies free from the hateful 
yet ruinous presence of a swarm of gad-fly cranks of all sexes, 
nationalities and politicalpredilections; if it will quit meddling with 
old landmarks and cease to follow the teachings and advice ot those 
who are never happy unless they are living in political chaos, and 
never well-fed, clothed or housed unless there is political dynamite 
and upheaval on every hand — if, in short, it will teach by example 
that the Democratic party of Missouri is what it once was — the pro- 
tector of the poor man, the friend of the laboring man, a foe to 
proscription in all its Protean shapes, a zealous guard over the peo- 
ple's money, free from all manner of envies, jealousies and spites, a 
true lover of the Constitution, a stalwart champion of home rule and 
States' rights, despising buncombe, and setting its face as a flint 
against every quack doctor of a demagogue peddling all sorts of vile 
legislative nosirums and specifics, the Democracy will rally to it en 
masse, reform its ranks, and go forward into the next fight with all 
of its old-time resolution and audacity. But there must be no back- 
ing and filling. The hour has struck when a new day is to be ushered 
in of either men or mice. 

M. TAINE ON NAPOLEON. 

[Kansas City Times, April 17, 1887.] 

M. Taine, having in his own estimation, pilloried Victor Hugo, 
for all the future, has been writiDg a series of articles on the life 
and character of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

M. Taine is a French literary charlatan, who carries the commune 
into literature and strives to pull down as many great names as pos- 
sible, the better to propitiate the red Republicans of the faubourgs. 
It is not the first time in history that a rat has been known to attack 
an elephant — not the first time in history that little six-by-nine luci- 
fers have risen in revolt against the living God and been kicked into 
perdition for their audacity. 

Indeed, among a certain class of authors the writing of sacrileg- 
ious things is looked upon as the frank license of superior skill, and 
the formulating of blasphemous speeches the strongest sort of evi- 
dence that behind the sacrilege and behind the blasphemy there is a 
genius that might illuminateand entrance theworld. 

Tothiscla^s belongs Henri Taine. It is positively painful to 
see him drag his crooked and crippled limbs up to the assault upon 
the mighty Corsican. Why so feeble an assailant should choose for 
his patl;ering and inconsequential blows so huge a colossus is only to 
1)6 accounted for upon the supposition that notoriety, even though 
it be of the infamous sort, is better than no notoriety at all. Pos- 
sessed perfectly of this spirit was Eratostratus, the Ephesian, who 
burnt the famous temple of Diana, and Randolph, who pulled the 
nose of Andrew Jackson. 

Red republicnnis:iu never had a master in Europe until Napoleon 
came. He organized it, drilled it, armed it, equipped it, and then 
served it out as food for gunpowder. Jacobin bones were left on 
every battle-field from Moscow to Waterloo. He found the crown of 
Louis XVI. rolling in a gutter of blood, and he picked it up, cleaned 



96 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

it, and put it upon his head. To keep it there he had to make war. 
All the kings in Europe coalesced to kill him, and to save his own 
life he became a king himself. That necessitated army after army, 
and who so well qualified to fight as those old Septembrizers, 
those old Dantouian butchers of the Abbaye, those old cut-throats 
of the Cordelier club who apostrophized the guillotine as a beauti-' 
ful woman, and wrote sonnets to its knife as to a coquettish maiden. 

Napoleon knew the who.e savage lot better than any other man 
in all France, and he managed, first and last, to get the great bulk 
of them killed. Their lineal descendants to day are such rabid 
Republicans as Taine, Madame De Remusat, Jung, and a whole host 
of other third-rate scribblers, who imagine that they can put out the 
light of the sun by lighting two-penny tallow candles. 

And how do they seek to blacken the fame of the great Napo- 
leon? IIow does this despoiler of the dead, Taine, seek to do it? 
By adverse criticisms of his genius as a soldier? No. By logical 
discussions of his capacity as a commander-in-chief? No. By 
showing wherein he failed as a ruler, a lawgiver, an emperor, the 
conqueror of Europe? No. By comparing him unfavorably to 
Ctesar, Hannibal, Marlborough, Frederick the Great? No, but by 
dwelling upon the venial sins and shortcomings of his personal char- 
acter. He delights to tell how Napoleon gave way at times to par- 
oxysms of ungovernable temper. How he swore at his secretaries, 
pinched the ears of his aids decamp, roared out at Josephine, abused 
his marshals, broke furniture, threw his clothes in the fire, insulted 
ambassadors, kept five or six mistresses, would not brook contra- 
diction, did not know what patience was, cared nothing for music, 
could not spell, did not know French, never read a book, abomin- 
ated plays, persecuted Madame De Stael, put on theatrical airs, was 
the terror of courtiers, and the overbearing despot whom all about 
him feared. 

And is this not a wonderful way to sum up the life and char- 
acter of Napoleon Bonaparte? To gossip about him in the style of 
an old woman; to tell of the little faults and foibles of poor human 
nature; to become his valet in order to see him at his toilet, in his 
bath, when he is relaxed, when he has nothing else to do except 
to make himself disagreeable; to leave out the Italian campaign, 
the Austrian campaign, the Prussian campaign; to say nothing of 
the Alps — where the eagles of the mountairs and the eagles of'the 
standards touched wing and wing and soared together; notliing of 
Montenotte; of Lodi, of Areola, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, 
Wagram and Jena, of Eylan, Friedland and 13<.rodino; nothing 
of the raft upon the Niemen, the peace of Tilsit, and three 
mouarchs at his feet pleading for the bare right to reign. And yet 
M. Taine calls ail this interminable stufT of his about Bonaparte's 
boots, temper, toilettes, idiosyncracies of various kinds, and what 
not, an accurate and critical summing up of the life and character 
of the greatest soldier, tlie greatest lawgiver, the greatest adminis- 
trator and the greatest ruler in all ways to make a nation powerful 
that the world ever produced 

The desire of the red Republicans to bring imperialism into 
disrepute may be all very legitimate and desirable, but why send a 
rat to attack an elephant? Were there not others of the earth alto- 
gether earthly to be carped at and picked to pieces? It takes a god 
to destroy a demi-srod. No pigmy of a man, much less such a man as 
Henri Taine, chnined Prometheus to the rock and summoned the 
vultures from the sky to prey upon his vitals. For work like that 
the forger of the thunderbolts had to apply his hands. The garru- 



MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 97 

lous Frenchman has simply lighted his two-penny candles in front of 
that tomb under the dome of the Invalides, and proposes to put out 
the sun of Austerlitz, 

THE STATUE TO CALHOUN. 

[Kansas City Times, April 27, 1887.] 

South Carolina did well yesterday when she unveiled the statue 
which had been erected to the memory of her foremost citizen, Jolm 
C. Calhoun. That he was the strongest man the South ever pro- 
duced in many intellectual ways, no Northern man doubts; that he 
was the strongest man the nation ever produced in many intellectual 
ways, the North will never admit. As parlies exist at present; as 
long as sectional lines remain as rigidly drawn as they are to-day; 
while the memories and the events of the Civil War still go to make 
up the standard whereby public men are tried, analyzed, and given 
a place in contemporaneous history, Calhoun, colossus though he 
was, can never leave his mighty impress upon much beyond the con- 
fines of his own immediate section. The day will come, however, 
when he will be dealt with as an American in the broadest and fullest 
acceptation of the term. Not as a South Carolinian alone, not as a 
Southern man alone, not solely as a Stales' rights man, but as a citizen 
of the entire republic, born to its institutions, the eloquent advocate 
of its safest policies, the fearless exponent of its best thoughts, the 
most inspired expounder of its wise institutions, and the most 
prophetic statesman a nation ever had to warn it of its perils, and 
point out to it the dangers that might be averted if it were true to 
its own interests and to the civilization which called it into being. 

The orator of the occasion was well chosen. The Hon. L. Q. 
C. Lamar, both by education and sympathetic political training, 
was thoroughlj^ equipped for the work he was expected to accom- 
plish. Without feeling it or knowing it, perhaps, the great South 
Carolinian had been his model in more ways than one. It was in 
these qualities alone, more than in any other, the orator says, was to 
be found Ihecauseof his unparalleled hold upon the love, reverence 
and trust of his people. "His/' hesays, "wasthegreatnessof a soul, 
which, fired with a love of virtue, consecrated itself to truth and 
duty, and with unfaltering confidence in God, was ever ready to 
be immolated in the cause of right and country." 

In an article of this sort, or even in an article of any kind in 
this day and generation, it would be time thrown away and effort 
wasted to attempt a criticism upon the intellectual side of Calhoun's 
character. As well discuss light, or heat, or germination, or the 
sun's rays, or the ebb and the flow of the ocean. As the advocate 
and the champion of States' rights, both in their essence and their 
purity, he never had an equal. 'None whoever lived in this country 
approximated him in luminous power and unanswerable logic. He 
was never ornate. He stood in speaking as some vitalized figure 
carved from marble. The stream of his discourse flowed from him 
as some calm, clear, yet resistless river. Many replies were made 
to his arguments in favor of this States' rights interpretation of the 
Constitution, but answers never. On one memorable occasion Mr. 
Webster is reported as sayinsr, in connection with a speech Calhoun 
had just made in defense of State sovereignty: " It may be replied 
to, but it can never be answered. Sir, it is unanswerable." 

Secretary Lamar's address is quite full and satisfactory. He 
does not present Calhoun in any new light, but it brings him out 



98 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

again into the full view of the public. His is a character to be studied 
from every standpoint, especially from every public and political 
standpoint. The present i!,eneiation do n<jt inform themselves as 
thoroughly as they should of the lives and characters of the great ones 
gone, more particularly Ihe great oues who founded the republic. 
'J'hey knovv Clay, Calhoun and Webster more b}' the constant repe- 
tili n of their names than by any careful examination or summing 
up of the life or works of either. We do notsaythat the American in- 
tellect has deteriorated since the men of the lievolutiou lived or their 
immediate descendants, but we do say that the age of statesmen 
appears to have passed. The men charged now to conduct public 
affairs are generally weak, very much swayed by personal likes and 
dislikes and full of deceit, subterfuge and trickery. The great 
need to-day in the councils of the country is an unselfish courage. 
Patriotism without courage is as mere sounding brass and tinkling 
cymbal. Indeed, patriotism is but another name for the very high- 
est sort of courage — the courage of conviction, devotion and truth. 
One thing more. Many lielieve that the results of the war put 
to death forever ihe doctrine of States' rights. There never was a 
greater mistake if liberty itself isto live and the present form of 
government endure as the Constitution established it. Calhoun's 
spirit and teachings are yet to save the nation from the unutterable 
despotism of centralization. 

CHAELES STEWART PARNELL. 

[Kansas City Tur.cs, May 14, 1887.] 

If it be true that the hand of death is even now being heavily laid 
upon Charles Stewart Parnell, the great Irish leader, the century 
will not have furnished, when the end is finally reached, a more piti- 
ful and deplorable giving up of life. 

It is the surroundings which will constitute the tragedy. He is 
carrying his country's banner. He is just in the prime of his physi- 
cal manhood, if that is to be measured by years, and just in the per- 
fect possession of every intellectual faculty. More united than they 
have ever been, even under O'Connell, the Irish people are at his 
back. He has already put forth so many admirable qualities of 
leadership. He has been so patient in adversity, so calm in defeat, 
so wise in counsel, so brave in actual combat that to lose him now 
would be for Ireland, in this mighty duel to the death for liberty, 
like losing her sword arm at the shoulder. 

A volume might be written upon the part that sudden or inop- 
portune death has played in the history of nations. When at Lussac 
bridge the lance head of a Breton squire sped truer to the heart of 
John Chandos than all the steel of the chivalry of France had done 
on the fifty f oughten fields, was it any wonder that the Black Prince, 
worn by disease and bent under his harness, exclaimed wearily when 
the news was brought to him, "God help us then! We have lost 
everything on the thither side of the seas '' Or if Montcalm had 
lived, what might finally have been the fate of Canada? If Coesar 
had been spared, while he might not have cared to save the repub- 
lic, would he not have made Nero and Caligula impossible? What 
might not have happened also to Catholic Europe if that old w^ar 
wolf from the north, Gustavus Adolphus, had not fallen at Lutzen, 
ankle-deep in blood, five balls in his body and a saber stroke which 
crushed his skull? Who can doubt for a moment that all the misery, 
pillage and degradation which the South endured through eight 



MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 99 

years of Grantism and reconstruction would not have been saved her 
if the miserable assassin had stayed his hand and permitted Abra- 
ham Lincoln to live and carry out his policy? 

We do not say that the Irish struggle would not go on even 
though Parnell should die suddenly from the grievous sickness 
which is now said to have fallen upon him ; but we do say that his 
loss at such a time would be almost irreparable. 

He knows his people, and he knows them at that better by all 
odds than any among his following. In his hands he holds the 
threads of every combination. A large proportion of the machinery 
of campaigning, both offensive and defensive, is the result of his 
own individual and "indomitable work. Gladstone leans upon him 
in perfect confidence and trusts him implicitly. His influence over 
his co-workers and associates is remarkable in a cause that has so 
few of the elements of physical success as compared with its adver- 
saries. At a word he could make war or peace, bring about an 
uprising or precipitate a revolution. Nor can too much stress be 
laid upon this powerful gift or factorship in his character as a 
leader. The hour may come when it will be folly any longer to 
either speak, plead, or negotiate. The hand that sometimes refuses 
the sword must forever renounce the scepter. There are also times 
when a great cause, no matter how holy or just, must either fight or 
abdicate. Then we firmly believe Parnell will fight. 

THE BATTLE OF THE FLAGS. 

[Kansas City, Times July 3, 1887.] 

General Sheridan from one standpoint and ex-President Jeffer. 
son Davis from another, have just written each a practical and 
sensible communication on the subject of the Confederate flags 
captured in battle, or supposed to have been so captured. Sheridan 
writes as a soldier; Davis as a statesman, with some of the touches 
of the amazing grace of politics thrown in. Each represents the 
extreme of two civilizations, but the place of their meeting is the 
common ground of common sense and practical humanity. 

It is well for these distinguished gentlemen to have their say, 
the first with a sort of f e-f o-f um of the ride to Winchester, and the 
second with a sort of funereal sighing for a 

" Touch of the vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still;" 

but the fighting men of the line, whom history never mentions and 
never thinks of, have their own ideas and opinions also as to this 
entire flag humbuggery, no matter where the flags now are or when 
and where they were first captured. As far as the great mass of 
the Confederate private soldiers are concerned they do not care 
two straws whether these so-called captured flags are to day in 
some spread-eagle Federal museum in Washington City, in Nova 
Scotia, in Booroo-Booroo Gha or in Afghanistan. The cause for 
which they once floated in the hot, lit foreground of many a terrible 
and pitiless battle, after having appealed to the sword perished by 
the sword. That was the end. The last lion of the Confederacy, 
borne backward in his leap at Gettysburg, died at Appomattox 
Court House. That again, we say, was the end. There was no 
more cause. No more struggle, no more government, no more 
armed resistance — no more anything for the South except misery, 



100 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

poverty, graveyards everywhere, crepe everywhere, mourning 
everywhere, and finally the beak of the reconstruction vulture where 
once had been the musket of the brave invader. 

Besides, there is a wonderful amount of gush and tomfoolery 
about this flag business for other causes and reasons. Take the whole 
mass and mess and muck of them — beginning at the palmetto flag 
of South Carolina, with a coiled rattlesnake at the root of the tree, 
and leading on up through device afterdevice and experiment after 
experiment, until the regulation stars and bars were reached — and 
what is left at last but something that can be found on every field 
where one of those parti-colored and variegated banners was 
unfurled — the deathless valor of the Confederate soldier. That is all 
that the survivors care anything about. Many a time they fought 
splendidly without any flag at all. It was the cause they were after. 
Their uniform was supposed to be gray in color, but who can erect 
a standard whereby rags and tatters shall be contrasted. Who shall 
prescribe the hue of seams and darns and patches ? 

Another thing: How many of these so called captured flags 
were ever really captured in actual battle? Some, we know, fell 
into Federal hands through capitulation. Some cameto them through 
the pre-emption of discovery. Hidden away securely, as was sup- 
posed, by detachments on a raid or outlying scouting parties, they 
were either given up by faithless guardians or unearthed by the 
enemy himself. Some were mere buckram flags, parodies upon the 
originals, pieced together by frolicsome school girls and stuck up on 
poles by the roadside in sheer womanly bravado. Some were furi- 
ously and gloriously taken at the point of the bayonet; but, how- 
ever, any or all of them were taken, the fact is eternal that those 
who now have them are welcome to them forever and ever. 

Neither do the surviving Confederate soldiers care two straws 
for the political aspect of the flag question. The American people 
make up a composite race — one part being demagogues and the 
other part toadies, the demagogues, however, standing vastly in the 
ascendency. The Republican demagogues have been and are yet 
making much of an uproar over President Cleveland's first action in 
the matter of the captured flags. They would march en masse to 
Washington to prevent their return. They would rise en masse to 
tear from liis ofiice any executive olBcer who would dare to attempt 
such a thing. They would do a great many other terrible things, 
among the balance to re-enact the role of the ass under the lion's 
skin; but high above all this rant, and roar, and fustian, there can 
simply be seen another edition of the bloody shirt. True, this loyal 
old bugaboo is a little bit different in itscut, and a little bit shrimper 
in its gather and pucker, but how Sherman's grand old gal, Eliza 
Pinkston, would delight to see it wave as of old, and how John 
Sherman himself will wave it for her delectation in the spirit land, 
and for his own advancement in the land of the demagogues and the 
toadies. One thing as well as another serves for a bloody shirt, and 
why not the return of the flags captured or supposed to be captured 
from the Confederate forces? 



GENERAL GORDON. 

[Kansas City Times, July 17, 1887.] 

General Gordon has been found again in Equatorial Africa, this 
time far up in the Gondokoro country and the big lakes. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 101 

What is lie doing there? What has he been doing since his 
miraculous escape from Khartoum? 

Nothing. He never escaped. He has never been seen after the 
gates of his defenses were sold by the miserable Egyptians to the 
Arab followers of the still more miserable Mahdi. 

Most probably he died under a hundred spear thrusts. It is gen- 
erally understood that his head was cut off. He may also have been 
flayed. This sort of mutilation is very common in the East, and Gor- 
don was superstitiously regarded as some monster of a different race, 
who would arise again if he were not dismembered. 

The Gondokoro story is an old one. There never was a day 
during the siege when Gordon could not have escaped from his envi- 
ronments at Khartoum, The soldiers could have gone with ease — 
the citizens would have been sacrificed. He preferred that they 
should all die together. If ever there was a Christian soldier in the 
fullest and freest acceptation of the term. Gordon was one. 

The average Christian soldier, however, was most generally a 
sneak. Behind the mask of meekness and lowliness he had the 
ambition of a king eagle. Look at Cromwell. He used to pray as 
many as eleven times a day. In battle he was known to dismount 
his own cavalry regiment — the Ironsides — and put up a fervent 
appeal for victory, all of which did not prevent him from cutting 
off the head of one king, and becoming one of the sternests despots 
of Europe, Then there was old Monk, who came alor.g behind 
Cromwell, He piddled and prayed all the way up to London, 
playing fast-and-loose with Parliament, higgling with the Presby- 
terians, hot and cold by turns to the Episcopalians, and finally 
went over to Charles II. for so much cash in hand and an earldom. 

But Gordon was a Christian general in this, that he frankly 
declared what he believed, what his convictions were, what motives 
controlled him, and for all of these he fought, prayed, and died. Of 
ail other English generals, we recall only the name of Havelock. 

Gordon was sent especially to bring out of the Soudan the 
Egyptian garrisons. It was as a giant going into the night to drag 
forth its specters. It was literally the unknown he was about to 
ride into, and he had for arms only a small walking cane and a well- 
worn Bible, Poor missionary ! so trustful and yet so doomed. 

His government abandoned him early. Red tape tied him 
tighter than the bonds of Paul at the first onset, Not a single sol- 
dier was ever given him. He asked for bare two hundred British 
at Wady-Halfy. Refused. For bare 5,000 Turks for tne whole 
territory. Refused. For Nubar Pasha as assistant. Refused, For 
a garrison at Berber. Refused. For money to organize the natives. 
Refused. Sir Evelyn Baring, a water-gruel diplomat sent out to 
Cairo to see what was needed, never saw Egypt in his life before, 
and only then from within sight of the Red Sea and the Mediterra- 
nean, dealt with this Samson as with a baby. He set him upon a 
high chair, tucked a napkin under his chin, and bade him live on 
Nile water. 

Poor soul! He still watched on, hoped on, prayed on, starved 
on, fought on. He saw garrison after garrison surrender, and chief 
after chief fall away from him. None of his race were by him or 
about him. His army was made up of everything which would run, 
sell, desert, betray, steal, rob — do every detestable deed known to 
man — but it would never fight. No wonder this last despairing cry 
came from him in his pitiful helplessness — "O! for but one more 
touch of elbows with the men who stood with me in the Crimea," 
He was thinking then of the old Black Watch, the famous 92d High- 



102 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

1 iiulcrs — his regiment — and he was hearing again the pealing of the 
slogan, and the bagpipes playing as of old, and loud, and shrill, and 
high- 
All the Blue Bonnets are over the border. 
Surely, surely, then, his youth must all have come back to him. 
And all his childhood found him on the hills. 

There came a day, however, when he was not to see the sun set 
any more. First, the flour gave out, then the meal. There 
were no medicines '1 here never had been any since Hicks Pasha 
went out on his last march to deification or death, and found a 
butchery There had been no meat for months. Cats and dogs 
and whatever else crept or crawled had long ago been devoured. 
Grass was gnawed on the streets as the wild King Nebuchadnezzar 
gnawed it while God's curse of madness abode upon his head. 

Finally, Sir Evelyn Baring's bill-of-fare had become alone 
possible: Eat Nile water. All day one day they ate it, and that 
night six of Gordon's pashas opened six gates to the enemy. The 
Nile water was evidently a ration not fit for a soldier. There is not 
much more to say, only when any liar puts in motion a report that 
Chinese Gordon is hiding in the wilds of Equatorial Africa, such 
liar should be instantly destroyed. 

No more preciousand peerless valor has any man shown through 
all the ages. He went, beautiful in the warrior joy of free and 
accepted death, and took from fate's outstretched hand the martyr's 
crown — only such crown as is fit for heroes. He made no moan. 
A simple, faithful, stainless knight, death smote him in the harness 
and he died by the standard. 

VICTOR HUGO. 

[Kansas Citj^ Times, July 21, 18ST.] 

In various ways, and by many tangled and broken lanes and 
avenues, efforts are being made in France to belittle Victor Hugo, 
and raise up over against him the younger Dumas, Octave Feuillet, 
Emile Zola, and a dozen or so other young gentlemen of the pen, 
sown to be a field of wheat, but sprouted as rye, grew as rye, and 
continued to be r3^e until the hogs were turned in upon it, showing 
by their greediness that it was not alone r3'e, but a very fine quality 
of rye at that. 

We will admit that these gentlemen may have been sown as 
wheat — sound, prolific, unmistakable wheat — but the wheat was 
bogus, and the outgrowth something else except the original seed. 

We think that we can understand the present attitude of most 
of the French writers of Paris toward Victor Hugo. He soared too 
high when he soared, and when he alighted it was upon a crag 
inaccessible. Mediocrity loves company. Birds that twitter, and 
sing, and peck here and there about the eaves aud gables of houses, 
have no use for eyries. The sun blears their eye-sight. Collapsed 
pinions are so many barometers of altitude. Their lungs give aw^ay 
above a tree-top. If their precious little bills are not eternally stuffed 
with hon-hons and sugar plums, they become inarticulate. Every 
throat is dumb until it has been food-expanded. 

Another thing: These so-called rivals of Hugo were manufac- 
turers; Hugo was creator By manufacturers W€ mean in literature 
the faculty to saw, plane, smooth, adjust, emasculate, make the 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 103 

proprieties trim, dove-tail, glue together, make pagodas, have arti- 
ficial lakes, get big gold fish, some water lilies, a water dragon or 
two, and an ape. By creators we mean a stroke of the pen and a 
passion. Another stroke, and humanity down in the lists like a 
giant struggling to do some good. Another stroke, and a star in the 
east, and the camel drivers down on their knees, terrified but not 
knowing that a Christ has been born. Another stroke, and lo! 
Jean Valjean! Another stroke, and lo! Napolean Bonaparte. This 
is what it means to be a creator. 

Take the younger Dumas as an example. It is true that he 
labors under the immense disadvantage of being the son of his father, 
who was a splendid giant, and who peopled the heavens with con- 
stellations like Athos and Aramis and Porthos acd D'Artagnan — 
but take him as the rival of Hugo, self-appointed and, perhaps, self- 
exalted. If in literature you gave him a SfjZ'n^w^^, it would be the 
"Anatomist" He analyzes a cough, but he evokes no idea of con- 
sumption. He dissects a suicide, but he leaves behind the philosoph- 
ical belief that some sort of expiation was needed for a life already 
too much advanced. He deals with love, and it is pull Dick, pull 
Devil, as to which of the lovers care the least for each other. He 
stands by the deathbed, and he scoffs at the priests. He arms him- 
self for war, and; he jeers at the young conscript who cries because 
he has just left his sweetheart or his mother. He makes a patriotic 
address, and he brings in atheism. He makes an address upon lit- 
erature, and between two weak and hesitating fingers he snuffs out 
the candle called Victor Hugo. 

Snuffs it out! Hold on a little bit. That can't be done. Men 
afloat — that is to say, rushing from pillar to post, here to-day and 
gone to-morrow, living by travel, and a great deal of it — like light 
things. A straw pile, only so it is afire, breaks the monotony of a 
day's ride. A blockade of any sort is a benediction, because a 
blockade signifies force, power, obstruction, something that must be 
inquired into, something that can be inquired about. But when 
anchored men say, Who is this young Alexander Dumas? I have 
read him some, but he don't touch me, somehow. He discourses 
much. He appears to be particularly sententious in some places, 
and particularly prolix in others, but in putting everythingtogether, 
I find that if you take away the chaff you break up the harvest. 

Break up the harvest! Lord bless you, there was never any- 
thing planted to make a harvest. Duma.sjils was and is a manufact- 
urer. Hugo was the creator. Dumas was satisfied with giving to 
his finest character a cough — not necessarily fatal, but rather weak, 
suffocating and appealing. He was further satisfied with m'lking 
his poor victim die at the right time for himself, at the wrong time 
for science and for human sympathy, ready with a thousand hands 
to apply a remedy. 

Hugo comes upon the stage like Danton used to, not knowing 
what he wanted until he got a smell of blood. You hf^ar him first 
like a bugle, faint, not exactly timid, but far away. Nobody p;iys 
any attention. "Bug* Jargal" dies with the publisher. " N^tre 
Dame " poises a littlebit, touches here and there, wavers to and fro, 
perishes by the wayside. 

" LesMiserables!" Hush! Did you hear that trumpf^f? The 
nation took time to listen. Presently it camo trooping. All chords 
were touched, all nerves responded, all devotions Icnprd active and 
alive, all humanity stirred in its sleep, all splendid manhood put its 
hand upon its sword. 

And the "Dame with Camelias" of the younger Dumas, who 



104 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

has just delivered an address before the French academy — think of 
that — who has just delivered it against Victor Hugo and his writ- 
ings. 

And now for a simile: They stood En joras up against a dead 
wall. A dead wall in French and Spanish executions is a wall too 
high for the most nervous conscript to fire over, or for the most 
hard shooting musket to penetrate. They stood En joras up against 
one in the house where he was captured. He had curly, auburn 
hair. The blood in his cheeks came and went as the web and the 
woof of the Lady of Shalott. Perhaps he had not slept for sixty 
hours. He had seen death all day and offered to shake hands with 
him, but death denied the contact. Finally they stood him up. 
After it was all over, and nothing was left but the midnight and the 
corpses, one old grenadier said: "It seemed to me that I was shoot- 
ing at a flower." 

What is the appearance the situation presents when not grena- 
diers, but conscripts and militia stand Victor Hugo up against a 
dead wall and shoot at him ? A flower ? Never. Some king eagle 
is a good name, after he has towered above Gillatt, who went down 
to his death and his glory for a woman who had rather tie a pinch- 
beck curate's white cravat than take the paladin, Breton though he 
might have been, who had just conquered the devil fish and the 
Douvers. 

We make mention of these things solely to show what a war is 
being waged upon Hugo. It is ridiculous, but it is practical. Hugo's 
day is near at hand. These other people ? Ah ! nothing. They 
have no days. 

HENRY M. STANLEY. 

[Kansas City Times, July 23, 1887.] 

And now the rumor comes that Henry M. Stanley, the noted 
African explorer is dead — killed by a native in some sort of com- 
bat or other. It may not be true, and he may still be alive; but 
the probabilities are against him. He was on the same old mission. 
Out goes an explorer into the unknown. He gets lost, or hemmed 
in, or captured. " The far cry comes up from Macedonia" for help. 
A rescue is planned. Some other explorer, equally as devoted, 
starts to accomplish it. And a third one to find the second, and may 
be a fourth one to find the third, until — as was the case with Dr. Liv- 
ingstone — as many as seven rescuing parties went to hunt first and 
last for him, and would have been hunting yet probably if Stanley 
himself had not come upon him accidentally. This expedition 
Stanley is now on, if he is living, is an expedition to rescue Emin 
Bey, one of the last beleagured foreign ofiicers left over from the 
Soudan folly. Of course men can do as they please. 

Personal bravery is something that always has been and always 
will be admired. Whoever risks'his life for the faith that is in him 
is a hero. It is something after all to see a person in the full pos- 
session of a splendid manhood take every desperate chance that 
can be encountered simply to solve the source of a river. Espe- 
cially when that river, to say nothing of its source, can never be 
anything else while the world stands except a breeder of fevers that 
kill in an hour, the haunt of savage wild beasts and still more sav- 
age natives. The weight of all the testimony ever compiled is to 
the effect that the white man can not live, work, and thrive in equa- 
torial Africa. Stanley did better than the great bulk of his race. 
He tells us why : "In four years in the jungles," he says, " I did 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 105 

not drink altogether four teaspoonfuls of either whisky or brandy." 
He studiously kept out of the night air. He never slept upon the 
bare ground. He always ate sparingly, and used very little meat. 
And even with it all he further says : "A white man who goes into 
the far tropics without a plentiful supply of opijim, quinine, and 
calomel had far better go without a compass, some good" fire-arms, 
an^Tpfenty of gun-powder. In the first place, you would never get 
out ; in the last place, you would have thirty chances ,out of one 
hundred." 

Now, here is the testimony of a man who was not yet thirty 
when he went first to hunt for Livingstone. Who was an athlete. 
Whose liver worked like a piece of prize machinery. Who eschewed 
alcohol in every shape. Whose head was as clear as a winter's 
night. Whose digestion was perfect, and yet who tells those who are 
to come after liim that if they ever want to get back they must bring 
plenty of calomel, quinine and opium. Can it ever be forgottenhow 
Dr. Livingstone, the presence of death in his very tent, groped about 
on his hands and knees till he found his medicine chest and a^te_£alp- 
mel by the handful? 

And for .what is all this done ? For science, some say. For geog- 
raphy, say others. For adventure, exploration, curiosity, because it is 
desirable, say others still. For a little gold dust. Two orthreegoril- 
las that never materialize and a few hundred pounds of ivory. Very 
well. It is a splendid field to roam about in, get lost in, get the 
jungle fever in; but one must have things pretty well closed up 
behind him at home. When he starts.it will be well for his peace of 
mind if he has no further retrospects. Stanley was a gallant and 
daring American. What a pity if he too, should perish on the 
threshold. 

DEATH FROM STARVATION. 

[Kansas City Times, July 34, 1887.] 

A great discussion is now going on between some English and 
French journals as to how starvation kills, what are the accompany- 
ing symptoms of starvation, and what the appearance of the body 
after it has been starved to death. The text for said discussion 
was the finding some weeks ago of a castaw^a}* boat in the Indian 
Ocean, wherein were seven dead sailors, said to have all died from 
starvation. The dead men were Frenchmen. 

The principal point in dispute seems to be what material changes 
take place in the reasoning faculties of the brain. To what extent, 
in other words, is the moral nature of man involved as evidenced by 
many horrible acts of cannibalism? 

Death by starvation has been simply regarded as a wasting of 
the body, a horrible agony, an increasing weakness, a lethargic 
state of the brain, coma, stupefaction, death. While all this is going 
on in a physical sense, however, what about the intellectual faculty 
and its power of distinguishing right from wrong? Is this, too, 
not undergoing the process of wasting and death? Is this not, too, 
losing complete control over all those superb moral qualities which 
make so many Christian heroes and martyrs in the world? Is not 
the residue simply what the 

Anorels— uprising-, unveiling-, affirm, 
That tlie play is the Tragedy Man, 
And its hero the Conqueror Worm, 

The niost deep rooted and powerful feeling of human nature — 



106 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

tbe love of a mother for lier offspring — is perverted in cases of 
btarvation. During the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, Josephus tells 
US that mothers ate their babies in great numbers and greedily. A 
similar case is mentioned in Second Kings, sixth chapter and 

1 weuty-ninth verse. It occurred during the famine in KSamaria. In 
such cases, if the intellectual faculty was not entirely gone who 
doubts for a moment that the mothers would have perished with 
their children? 

No end of books have been written on the subject of starva- 
tion, some taking one ground and some another; some contending 
that the brain dies first, and some that it is the last to die. In the 
case of these seven dead sailors, although there was much distor- 
tion on some of the faces, no attempt had been made at cannibalism. 
From this the French medical journals argue that the brain dies 
last, and that the moral faculties are the last to leave the human 
tenement. 

What are the symptoms of death from want of food, and how 
long can man subsist without solid or liquid nourishment? Chossat 
ttie great French pathologist, says from eight to eleven days, and 
after forty per cent, of the weight of the body is consumed. Now, 
as this means the waste of more of certain tissues than others, it may 
be interesting to mention those that suffer most. The fat wastes 93 
per cent, of "its weight; the blood, 75; the spleen, 71; the liver, 52; 
the heart, 44; the bowels, 42, and the muscles, 42. On the other 
hand, the following parts w^aste much less: The bones, 16 per cent. ; 
the eyes, 10; the skin, 83; thelungs,22, and the nervoussystem only 

2 per cent. — another argument in favor of the proposition that the 
brain dies last. But the pointmost worthy of attention among these 
figures is the point that there must be almost consumption of fat be- 
fore death takes place — in fact, death by starvation is really death by 
cold. As soon as thefat of the body goes — and fatistheprinciplethat 
keeps up heat — death takes place. The temperature of the body dim- 
inishes but little until the fat is consumed, and then it falls rapidly. 

The last symptoms of starvation from want of food have been 
given in ten thousand books, and they are generally the same 
whether in the polar regions or the tropics. They are: Severe pain 
at the pit of the stomach, which is relieved on pressure. After a 
day or two this pain subsides, to be followed by a feeling of weak- 
ness or sinking in the same region. Then an insatiable thirst super- 
venes, which, if water be withheld, thenceforth becomes the most 
distressing symptom. The countenance becomes pale and cadaver- 
ous. The eyes acquire a peculiarly wild and glittering stare. Then 
a general emaciation. Then the body exhales a peculiar fcetor and 
the skin is covered with a dirty, brownish-looking and offensive 
secretion. The bodily strength rapidly declines, the sufferer totters 
in walking. His voice grows weak, and he is incapable of the least 
exertion. At last the mental powers fail. First stupidity, then 
imbecility, and at the end a raving delirium. 

Chossat, above quoted, sneers at the idea that intellectual loss ■ 
must precede cannibalism. He declares that man is a carnivorous 
animal, and that he approaches the hog nearest in all of his instincts 
and appetites. Hence, when he gets desperately hungry, he will 
eat his fellows like a sow ^vill eat up ^n entire litter of pigs. 

However, the discussion goes on, and we are only interested in 
it to the extent of finding out by any research or resource of science, 
when the man who feeds upon his fellow is a physical or a moral 
monster, or both. This is the pith and point of the present discus- 



MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 107 

IN A FOREIGN LAND. 

[Kansas City Timcs^ August 31, 1887.] 

The death of Mrs. Hubbard, the wife of the Hon. Richard H- 
Hubbard, American minister to Japan, was singularly toucliing and 
pitiful. She was sick a long time. Slie saw the inexorable reaper 
afar off. Ashe came nearer and nearer she dreamed oftener and 
oftener of her home by the setting sun. Just before she went out 
into the night she weariedly askeO: "Are we not almost there ?" 

Where ? At her Texas home of course, for none can know 
except the exile in person how that name home lingers the last upon 
the lips just before they become inarticulate forever. Her loved 
ones were behind her, sleeping the sleep that wakes not till the blow- 
ing of the trumpet. She might perhaps have been a girl again. 
There again she saw the same low, large moon lifting a realm of 
romance out of the sea, and there again she saw the darkness and 
the twilight, as twin ghosts, creeping in from the outermost gloam- 
ings and obscuring all the land together. Outside a mocking toird 
was singing as though its voice had a soul and that soul had already 
caught a gJimpse of heaven. It could not be true that the wan, 
wasted face was never again to feel the breezes of her own native 
land, nor the fading vision ever again to see the green of the prairie 
and the bkie of the sky grow glad together. Had she not been on a 
long journey? Wasshe not so tired— so tired? Would she not 
rest ? Had she not wistfully asked : "Are we not almost there ?" 
What voices she must have beard before she got to the river. 
What faces must have stood out of the mists of her younger days 
and smiled upon her as she set her tender feet upon the ragged rocks 
of the road which led down to the Jordan. What shadows came 
forth on either hand and gathered close about her for recognition, 
as some gay, or blooming, or happy, or blessed, or beautiful thing 
her girlhood had known and her memory had treasured, until smit- 
ten in a foreign land she was forced to go the dark way all alone. 

"Are we not almost there?" Yes, entirely there now, but not 
in the home where she had left her idols and where, through its 
open windows, she could see the monuments above her head. It was 
another home, one not made with hands. Perhaps it was beautiful. 
Perhaps it was satisfying and comforting. Perhaps the new life 
brought a new delight in the smiting of the palms and the playing 
of the harp-players; but where was her Texas home, the one she 
longed to reach? Where the mocking bird in the bushes? Where 
the lazy cattle grazing, knee deep all day in the sunshine and the 
grasses? Where the'stile at the gate? Where the familiarity that, 
even in the blackness of darkness, could lay a hand on fifty familiar 
objects? Where the "lute unswept and the pieces of rings?" Where 
" the fragments of songs that nobody sings?" 

One knows nothing whatever about all these things. It is not 
given to finite minds to tell what is over beyond the wonderful 
river, but this abides: When the sun has risen for the last time in 
life, when the tide is just about to turn, when there have been years 
of exile, and it may be years also of bitterness, isolation and despair, 
one great yearning rises above and masters every other emo- 
tion — the yearning just to get home, the yearning which prompted 
the old, immemorial question: " Are we not almost there?" 



108 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

ALWAYS A WOMAN. 

[Kansas City Times NovemlDer 33, 1887.] 

It was a woman, and a beautiful one at that^ in that terrible 
eastern story who, when the night deepened, stole away from the 
side of her drugged and drunken husband, a lord of armies and 
kingdoms, and crowns and crept to the hovel and the arms of a 
beastly ragpicker, where her food was to be garbage and her 
caresses blows. 

It was to Lacenaire, the Paris butcher, who killed people like 
fatted hogs and sold their liesh in delightful sausages, that a grand 
dame cried out, supposed to be a duchess: "They will cut off 
your head. Very well. You shall have as many masses as a king. 
Not for your soul's sake, however, but your sausages." 

Evidently this magnificent animal had been eating some of the 
pork. 

When Charlotte Corday forced a passage into the bathroom of 
that wild beast Marat, and plunged a dagger into his breast, it was 
a woman who flew upon her like a tigress, knocked her down, leaped 
upon her ferociously, tore out her hair, lacerated her face, and strove 
to bite out her flesh by mouthfuls. "When she was removed," 
says Camille Desmoulins, who reported the trial, "the face of 
Marat's mistress was as bloody as if she had that moment been eat- 
ing raw flesh just cut from a recently slaughtered ox." " And the 
prisoner ? " inquired the judge. " Even in her blood she was beau- 
tiful. I did not see her torn and disfigured face, however ; I only 
saw her soul." 

Poor, grandly-gifted, intrepid, unfortunate journalist! There 
came a day when even your colossus Danton could not save you, 
and when "this one little speech alone — though only a sudden out- 
burst of pity, or tenderness, or romance — would weigh more in the 
scales of the Terror, which was to try you than did the gigantic, 
two-handed sword of the barbarian Brennus weigh in the scales 
when Rome was buying back her very life with jewels and precious 
and golden things enough to freight a vessel. 

Bat to meaner and viler things: When the anarchists had 
done their devil's work in Chicago, and when a suddenly awakened 
and infuriated country was demanding that those who preached 
dynamite should fare equally with those who acted dynamite, the 
hunt was up for a scrofulous, pestiferous fellow who needed mer- 
cury badly in some one of its preparations or other, called Johann 
Most. Where was he? In what hiding place was stowed away the 
carcass of this slinking cur of revolution, barking furiously before 
danger began to show itself, and then — through alleys and places 
where offal is deposited — hurrying away to a congenial kennel. 

One day they found him, and where do you think? Under a 
woman's bed. And there sat the w.oman in front of his place of con- 
cealment, rocking as blandly as the May winds rock the apple blos- 
soms and singing low to herself, no doubt, as her scullion hero 
crouched under the bed, some song of the grand old days when 
lance-shaft was splintered to gauntlet-grasp and sword blade was 
shivered at the hilt — something which, when looking out upon the 
wild sea of fight would call aloud to tell of one peerless leader com- 
ing down to guide its vanguard: 

I know the purple vestment; 

I know the crest of flame; 
So ever rides Marallius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 



MISCELLANEOTS WRITINGS. 109, 

One respects and glorifies the heroic Highland maiden who — 
when the bloodhounds of Claverhouse were hot on the flying foot- 
steps of her youthful lover — gave him shelter under her hoops. 
The moss troopers came; entered in; ransacked that house from 
cornerstone to rafter; broke into closets ; thrust broadswords 
through bedticks; sounded the wainscoting; knocked in the heads 
of hogsheads, and rummaged every box and barrel capacious 
enough to hide a man; but no fugitive. There sat the maiden, 
serene and smiling, never stirring a fold of her dress, or lifting so 
much as a finger from her lap. Finally the fellows of the broad- 
swords, and they were slashing fellows, too, bade her a rough good- 
bye as they rode away.^ Then out popped her lover, radiant. Then 
he wanted to take her in his arms and caress her. Then she broke 
down, burst into a flood of tears, and cried passionately: ''Go 
away! Go away! Go instantly! I hate you!" JBut she didn't, 
bless her pure, virginal, heroic soul "for," as old David Ramsay 
says, a quaint old story-teller of the olden time, "they were mar- 
ried after the evil days, and Claverhouse sent a young peacock 
of an aide to dance at the wedding." But under a bed with a 
woman on guard ! Under a bed and he a man of war! Under a 
bed and he the fierce evangel of a new crusade — of bomb-shells, 
gunpowder, fulminates that tear mountains to pieces, oaths taken 
at midnight at a coflin for a court, pass-words, grips, signs, signals, 
gabble, gush, rant, cant scoundrelism, and boom! boom! boom! — 
Lord of Israel! what sort of a woman was that who stood guard 
over that sort of a lover? 

But a little more of Mr. Most. After a speech in New York 
the other day, notorious for its blasphemy, ferocity, and evil 
counsel, the law laid hold of him and brought him to its bar. Bail, of 
course, but who do you think was his bondsman? It was not a man 
at all, but only another woman, said to be rich, said to have a home, 
husband, children, property, the good things of life, and to be 
a devout believer in every infernal doctrine put forth by the most 
advanced anarchist. . 

A little before this, yet another woman, well known in New York 
took upon herself the task of erecting a monument to the hanged 
scoundrels, who appeared to have made rampant all the crankism 
latent in the country. She swears to rest neither day or night until 
she has raised money enough to carry out her purpose. "Audit 
shall be as high as Washington's, too," she said, defiantly, to a 
reporter, "if we choose tx) make it so." 

We frankly confess that we do not understand anything about 
the whole business. Of course, in the bosom of every woman ever 
yet born into the world there is something of the nature of the 
tigress, and in all the black and the dark things of a man's life, 
those threads which are blackest and go mainly to make up the 
warp and the woof, are always woven by a woman's hand ; but the 
tigress, is a cleanly animal. Gordon Gumming says that she bathes-' 
three times a day in her native jungles, that she will not touch the 
meat she has not slain, and that for her offspring she is the bravest 
wild beast known to the earth. And yet what could this bonds- 
woman for Most do for her ofi'spring if anarchy could barely once 
hold the city of New York for twenty-four hours. 

Whence comes, however, to sum it all up, this morbid, mon- 
strous, unaccountable female craving for making heroes, angels, and 
models out of all sorts, kinds, and conditions of murderers — men who 
have butchered in cold blood. Who have not killed in open com- 
bat, body to body and pistol to pistol, but have ambushed their vie- 



110 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

tims and slaughtered them before they could turn about. Ogre 
murderers, pitted and pustuled, as i hough yet in their veins and 
mixed with their bJood there still flowed the incarnate spirit of 
small-pox. Beetle-browed murderers their ancestry still traceable 
to some traveling showman's escaped chimpanzee. Pert young 
murderers of the long hair order, beginning with a stolen horse and 
ending by killing a man in his sleep for money. Romantic mur- 
derers, who poison friends, pack their bodies in trunks and then go 
off ia a blaze of glor}^, leaving behind them a track that might be 
followed in a coach and four. Mysterious murderers — regular dons 
of fellows — low-voiced, soft of speech, perfumed, affecting jewelry, 
dirt under their finger nails, and kept by a woman. 

But whatever the kind of murderer, he gets fresh fruits, flowers, 
visits when admissable, sly little missives, fondling when possible, 
books marked at any passage that is amorous, all too often means to 
escape, money, delicate things, bon-bons, adulation, flattery, hero 
worship, sympathy, pity, and tears. 

But bring to the attention of one of these murderer worshipers 
some member of his victim's family who needed help, and she would 
draw back her dainty garments as though they might be touched by 
the finger of a leper, and throw a kiss to her beloved as she flounced 
away from the cell. 

But, after all, nature takes care of such creatures as these called 
women? Those who finally do not die through pads, stays, corsets, 
and bustles, die in the midst of an apothecary shop. 

MORE LITERARY MUTILATION. 

[Kansas City Times, Dec. 12, 1887.] 

Sir Richard Burton is probably the ablest, the most gifted, and 
the most thoroughly equipped and accomplished Oriental scholar 
any English-speaking country ever prodilced. His knowledge of 
the Arabic language is almost perfect, as also his knowledge of East- 
ern customs and manners, Eastern traditions, superstitions, and folk 
lore, and especially Eastern literature, which he delights to revel in 
and to inhale whatever there was about it of perfume, languor, dal- 
liance, and love. Well, he once upon a time made a literal transla- 
tion of the "Arabian Nights," accompanied by a mass of invalua- 
ble notes, which threw a flood of light upon points that had hitherto 
been obscure — so obscure, indeed, as to be a sealed book to every- 
body. 

Only 1000 copies of the translation were printed, and these 
instantly found their way into the hands of such scholars in Eng- 
land, France,and Germany as could the more quickly lay hold upon 
them. 

So far so good, but now comes Lady Burton, with her edition 
.of her husband's great work. It has been pruned, trimmed, dove- 
tailed, pared down, peruked, periwigged, pomatumed, essenced, and 
perfumed. 

Out of some 3,000 pages of the famed original, she makes 
the modest statement that she has only found it necessary to cut out, 
carve, mutilate, make patchwork of, make crazy-quilts of, some four 
or five hundred ! As for the notes and the explanations of the first edi- 
tion, which made it so extremely valuable in more ways than one, 
what about them ? Have they, too, been sprinkled withrosewater, 
and submitted to the inspection of some sacerdotal mummy who, wea- 
ried out long ago with parish tittle-tattle, gossip and scandal, has 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. Ill 

Withdrawn to his own hide-bound sarcophagus, hating and condemn- 
ing everything which comes to him from the outside world, telling 
of a civilization which he could never understand because of its 
frankincense, its myrrh, its odors, and its Odalisques, and because 
in snuflle, and groan, and drone, and monotone, it is not up to the 
standard of the " Pilgrim's Progress, "or " Baxter's Saints' Rest." 

And Lady Burton's self-contidence over what she has done in 
the way of mutilation, and her self-assurance that she has done it 
so well, are all the more amusing and refreshing because of the fact, 
as she states herself, that Justin Huntley McCarthy, M. P., assisted 
her much in the little matter of expurgation. 

A.nd was it not a little matter ? Only some four or five hun- 
dred pages out of 3,000. Only ! Why, there is nothing in 
thi^ world that could furnish a counterpart for such vandalism, 
unless one could find a sculptor greater than any known to ancient 
or modern times, who, after carving out a magnificent statue of 
Apollo, needing only life to be a god, proposed to put it in some 
great gallery of art for the world to see. Before doing this, how- 
ever, lie would cut away a leg, saw off an arm, put out one eye, 
pinch a piece off the nose, and then cry aloud to everybody : 
" Come up and see the work of your Phidias, greater than whom 
no sculptor was ever born upon the earth." 

But why go on ? Juggled with and cheated in all sorts of ways 
— in his adulterated flour, sugar, coffee, pepper, yeast powder, wine, 
whisky, beer, brandy, in the most of what he eats and what he 
drinks, why should this easy-going, rollicking, broad-shouldered, 
good natured beast of all burdens, called the American, draw the 
line at his literature ? Skimmed milk is skimmed milk, no matter 
whether in the greasy pot of a swill-fed dairy, or within the guilt 
and gold of Lady Burton's dishwater edition of her husband's 
"Arabian Nights." 

One thing more : before the work is printed, we respectfully 
suggest that it be dedicated to Anthony Comstock. 

CHRISTMAS REJOICINGS. 

[Kansas City Times, December 27, 1887.] 

It is well to make Christmas the one precious holiday of the 
nation; to fill it full of mirth and good cheer; to rest from labor and 
have a reckoning with time; to open the heart and the purse to every 
cry of sorrow and every tale of distress; to remember that midnight 
sky across which a star flashed that had never yet been seen on shore 
or sea; to ask why in that lowly manger a babe was found, aboveits 
head an aureole, and in its eyes the light of a mighty revelation; to 
recall how from all the long, cold, cruel, terrible night of paganism 
there came forth a far voice in the wilderness echoing the tidings of 
a New Jerusalem; think over all that Ctirlstianity has done for the 
world and it may yet do if infidelity does not defile it, politics 
debauch it, agnosticism corrupt it, materialism obscure it, perni- 
cious pulpit-teachings emasculate it, and brutal sectarianism finally 
eat it up alive. 

That the hirth of Christ, the deliverer of the human race, and the 
mysterious link connecting the transcendent and incomprehensive 
attributes of the deity with human sympathies and affections, 
should be considered the most glorious event that ever happened 
and the most worthy of being reverently and joyously commemo- 
rated, is a proposition which must commend itself to the heart and 



112 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

reason of every one of His followers who aspires to walk in His 
footsteps and share in the ineffable benefits His death has secured to 
mankind. 

And was not the birth of our Saviour the most glorious event 
that ever happened in all history? The world was rotien at every 
pore and vein and organ and artery of its body. Born in the reign 
of Tiberius Cassar, that monster of everything beastly in lust and 
horrible in cruelty. Rome — then almost the mistress of ever^'thing 
known of either land or water — was given up wholly to war, murder, 
pillage, rape, gladiatorial butcheries, and excesses of other kinds so 
monstrous and so unnatural that historians have not yet agreed as to 
their origin, whether, in fact, they were borrowed from the Greeks, 
the Babylonians, the Assyrians, or from a race in further Egypt, 
long antedating the loves, the crimes, the sins and the follies of Cleo- 
patra. Look where one would, chastity was the exception and not 
the rule. Woman was literally a beast of burden in most of the 
nations, and was bought and sold as a ewe or a heifer upon the hoof. 
Polygamy abounded. Slavery in the most intolerable form ever 
known to man universally existed, the master having the absolute 
power of life and death over his slave. War was little less than 
absolute extermination. Conquest meant either depopulation, 
extinction, or absorption. Some of the massacres surpassed in 
extent and atrocity everything ever yet recounted of Timour Lenk 
orZingis Khan. Out of t' is sort of a civilization there comes forth 
a Nero, aPhalaris, a Caligula, a Domitian,a Heliogabalus, aMarius, 
and aSylla — human butchers all, possessed of a thirst for blood that 
never knew an hour of appeasement until the assassin's hand smote 
some, and death in the fullness of their years smote the balance. 

Paganism was the only religion — if such indeed it can be called 
— and it taught nothing but a gross and licentious materialism. 
To live was simply to enjoy. Possession was the only thing need- 
ful to struggle for — the possession of palaces, slaves, kingdoms, 
jewels, concubines, fine linen, spices, wines, wild beasts, shows, 
monster circuses, triumphal processions, luxury, trophies, monu- 
ments, temples, and legions that roamed at will, butchering as they 
roamed, through Europe, Asia, and Africa. Might was right, and 
the sword the only arbiter. Mankind apj^eared to have but one 
mission, that of making war, in which the strong laid hold of the 
weak, and either slew them, exiled them, or made them helpless 
and pitiful slaves. 

It was then that the Judean shepherds, watching their flocks by 
night, saw a great, strange light in the sky, and it was then, in a 
trough of a stable in Bethlehem, the founder of a new faith, a new 
belief, and a new religion, first showed himself in human form to a 
world which was to put Him to death because, in full accord with 
His heavenly mission, He wished to redeem and save it. And how 
feeble and helpless the struggle first appeared. On every hand was 
menace, wrath, unbelief, and despotic power. The Roman tyranny 
was harsh beyond measure, soulless, and omnipotent. How long 
would paganism tolerate the preaching of doctrines which were 
eventually to shatter its idols, purify its temples, and convert its 
worshipers. And yet how touching, tender, and appealing w^ere 
the doctrines thus preached. Woman was enfranchised and made 
fit to become the helpmate and companion of man — to adorn his 
household, rear their offspring, teach purity and virtue, thereby 
making the family homoi^'eneous, and thereby making as adamant 
the foundations upon which to erect the two precious and priceless 
fabrics of society and the state. When polygamy died something 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITTNGS. 113 

like human freedom began to take vigorous and healthy root in the 
earth. The Sermon on the Mount penetrated and illuminated the 
surrounding darkness, as Sinai must have blazed forth as some huge 
mountain on tire when Moses went up to have laid upon him the 
command of the Lord. As balm softer than any in Gilead, how the 
inculcations to be charitable to one another, and good to one another, 
and just and forbearing to one another, must have fallen upon the 
ear of the miserable and persecuted in every land — ihe captive in 
his dungeon, the slave in his fetters, the emperor with his purple 
about him, and the beggar in his rags and his ulcers, even as another 
Lazarus. 

And then the promises of a haven of rest in the end. Here at 
last was something tangible. Heieat last was something which 
stopped death's power to make the grave' the end of all — which 
robbed the grave of its power to any longer to make of its 
coffin and its winding sheet utter and absolute oblivion. Here 
at last was something beyond the Jordan. When the road 
had been rough, and weary, and desolate. When old age had 
come on apace, and all the air was full of farewells for the dying. 
When the morning was never so bright any more on the hill- 
tops, nor the twi-light ever so weird and strange any more in the 
valleys. When youth had seen all the fires of its aspirations and 
ambitions go out one by one on desolate hearthstones. When fancy 
could no longer fly and imagination no longer take wings and soar, 
'as a bird that soars and sings. When illusions had simply become 
spectres to torment or affright. When the light had so soon, so 
soon died out of the loved faces of the early doomed and dead. 
When there were voices in the air that nobody could hear, and 
sounds in the darkness that nobody could interpret. When the 
tottering gait had well nigh reached the limit of its strength, and 
the tremulous hand the fullness of their tension. When life was 
felt to be flaring in all the veins as a taper about to be spent, and 
something like the presence of the Invisible Angel was left to be 
at the door — here then at last was the blessed promise of the resurrec- 
tion. 

Is it any wonder, therefore, that the Christian world hallows the 
birthday of such a Kedeemer — of such a God showering upon it 
such a multitude of inestimable blessings? The whole plan of sal-, 
vation — fraught as it is with so many glorious promises and pledges 
— is one of the simplest, purest, and most easily adopted of all the 
other aggregated mass of teachings and revealments the ingenuity 
of man or the inspiration of so-called potentates, prophets, or powers, 
ever intellectually encompassed. It appeals to everything that is 
pure, truthful, clean, upright, and unselfish in humanity. 

It asks for nothing that is not good to grant either as the indi- 
vidual, the citizen, the ruler, the conqueror, or as a simple unit in the 
vast volumes of the population which people the earth. Millions 
have embraced it and die as only those can died who are filled with 
a perfect peace. To the poor and afflicted it has brought such con- 
solations as made grievous burdens less difficult to be borne, and 
physical pain or mental agony less agonizing in its tortures and 
aftiictions. It has made nations merciful and the strong more toler- 
ant and helpful of the weak. It has resisted a legion of assaults, 
and seen a legion of its assailants cast down, broken, overwhelmed, 
pr disgraced. Blessed, therefore, is the land which still hallows, 
reveres, and celebrates its Christmas. There is not another day so 
momentous in all ancient or modern chronology. 



114 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARBS. 

POOR TALENTINE BAKER. 

[Kansas City Times, January 6, 1888.1 

It is all very well now to sing paeons over the grave where Gen- 
eral Valentine Baker has been buried. He recks not now of any 
war-trumpet that may be busy with his name or fame. The poet 
may sing of his sorrowful and tempestuous life, and the novelist may 
make of him a hero to adorn many a tale and romance; but he is 
past all heeding now— he has crossed over the river to rest, it may 
be, with many another soldier under the shade of the trees. 

General Valentine Baker, not long dead of a sudden heart 
trouble, was born in 1831. Joining the British Army in 1848, he 
served with brilliant courage and enterpiise in Kaffir land, in 
India, and in the Crimea. His regiment then was the Twelfth 
liancers. Afterward , when only 28 years of age, he was made colonel 
of the Tenth Hussars, one of the crack English cavalry regiments, 
and one which had seen service in the four quarters of the globe. 
The Prince of Wales was his steadfast friend — aye, more than friend, 
for they were roystering companions together. When the Prince 
made his somewhat celebrated visit to this country, the daring 
colonel of the Tenth Hussars was in his train, a confidential adviser 
and a constant attendant. It was remarked that the two men 
seemed inseperable. 

Fate was weaving a web for the future, however, and poor 
Baker with his eyes wide open went straight to his destiny. 

One summer night — flushed somewhat with the wine of the 
mess table and the wine of the glorious weather — he was riding up 
from the camp at Aldershot to London. In the same railroad apart- 
ment with him was a lady whom he did not know, whom he had 
probably never seen, and who was disposed to be friendly, at least, 
if not a little free. Some courtly conversation was held between 
the two, and Baker saw or imagined he saw an opportunity for an 
intrigue. Perhaps he pushed his suit. Ko doubt he would not take 
the first no for an answer. It may be that with the glamor over him 
he came too near for a man who came to be denied ; but whatever he 
did, when the train reached London the woman called a police 
officer, told her story, and Baker was required to answer at a court 
of justice the next morning. 

He made no defense publicly. He simply said to the magistrate, 
" I have sinned, perhaps, and I will suffer. Let the law be satis- 
fied." He was imprisoned for a brief period, but the Queen, when his 
sentence had been served out,took his regiment away from him, drove 
him from the army, and so brandedhim that he was octracisedbv soci- 
ety in all its mean, petty, abject and malignant ways, until Valen- 
tine Baker sought service with the Turk. The Russo-Turkish War 
of 1877-8 was just on the eve of outbreak, and the Sultan made him 
a major general and assigned him to the command of the gendarmerie 
or what would be called in this country home-guards. This he 
perfectly drilled and disciplined, and afterwards — when the war 
was becoming every day more bloody and desperate — he was given 
a division of regulars and sent rapidly to the front. At the Balkans 
he fought splendidly, was decorated by the Sultan, and undoubt- 
edly saved the army of Suleiman Pasha, then in full retreat for 
Adrianople. 

Over and over again appeals were made to Queen Victoria to 
reinstate him in the British army, but they might just as well have 
been made to a stone. The Prince of Wales never forsook him, and 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 115 

made two touching personal requests of his mother in regard to him, 
but her obdurate heart never melted for a moment. Until his dying 
day the sentence of the court-martial stood over against his name 
unexpunged. 

Once he told the true story of his railroad adventure, but not for 
the purpose of softening the Queen or begetting sympathy. His first 
advances, he said, were unobjectionable. The woman appeared 
rather to return his expressed admiration, and to be not averse to a 
little coquetry. Desiring to make the flirtation a little more emphatic 
on his part, she stopped him curtly, and that was the end. After- 
ward he spoke no word to her that was not perfectly proper and 
respectful. The entire British army believed him, as did as well 
almost the entire British public, outside of the army. 

By and by there were troubles in Egypt, and thither went 
Baker, the soldier instinct still powerful upon him, and a great 
yearning still in all his being to fight for his country, even though he 
fought under a foreign flag. 

At Tel-a-Kebir, Baker was among the first to storm the works 
of Arab! Pasha. Afterward Osman Digna grew bold, grew ram- 
pant, grew defiant, and Baker marched to encounter him with a 
small Egyptian force of ragamuffins. British soldiers were denied 
him, but he went forward without them. At El Teb the Arabs 
deliveredone volley and charged home. The Egyptians did noteveu 
wait to receive the onset. They fled ignominiously, and the flight 
was a massacre. In the rear, and almost alone. Baker made heroic 
efforts to rally his men, but if he had been a desert sand dune talk- 
ing to the wind he could have made no less impression. Finally he 
was shot in the leg. There were scars of a half dozen worse 
wounds on his body, and he paid no attention to this. When near 
to succor, and almost within shoulder touch of the British lines, an 
iron ball tore through his left jaw, destroyed the sight of one eye, 
knocked him from his horse, and knocked him insensible. In 
another moment he would have been speared to death, but of a 
sudden a defiant bugle note rang out loud and shrill and challeng- 
ing, and, if he then could have looked up and looked forward, he 
might have seen his own idolized regiment, the Tenth hussars, rush- 
ing down to the rescue, 

If he had lived until the Prince came regularly to the throne 
he would have been restored instantly to his own again; but, poor 
fellow, fate would not even let him do that. He died at Ismalia, 
far from his own sea girt bind, and almost before he could say fare- 
well to those about him or leave a single little message for the loved 
ones th at were not b}^ 

We were aware of the claims now being made that, if he had 
lived a little longer, the Queen, taking advantage of her jubilee year, 
would have restored him to the ranks of the British army — in fact, 
making such restoration a crowning act of mercy and grace. If she 
ever entertained anintention so righteous as this, red tape prevented 
its fulfillment. How pitiful sound the remarks made about him by 
a distinguished general officer, who was also his intimate friend: 
"It is sad to think of the poor fellow lying upon his sick bed, 
heartbroken with the many disappointments he had experienced. 
All his hope had centered on the jubilee year, yet it seemed drawn 
to a close without the Queen having shown any sign of relenting. 
It is then easy to understand how, in Baker's weakened condition, 
desire to live may have died out, for he knew nothing of the pleas- 
ant surprise in store for him. Could he but have realized the cer- 
tainty of his restoration, the poor fellow would probably have been 



116 JOHN ktavma:; kdwards. 

living still. The Queen's pardon came too late, and all that his sor- 
rowing friends can now do is to join in raising a tribute to the 
memory of one who was a far better man than many whom the 
world delights to honor." 

It certainly can not be denied that after life's fitful fever he will 
sleep well. 

ROSCOE CONKLINO. 

[Kansas City Times, April 18, 1888.] 

" A great man has fallen this day in Israel." 

At the grave's side no one should write of him except as a typi- 
cal American citizen. If there had been anything of dross, deaih's 
crucible left only the gold in its value and purity. On the shroud 
there was noplace for hands that might have smutched it with par- 
tisanship; in the coffin there was no place for the cold formula of 
political creeds— no place for the cold presentment of any Kemesis 
born of the tierce struggles and passions con^mon to all men who 
follow a flag and fight its party's battles. 

Coukling w^as a proud man — proud of his clean hands, his clean 
public record, his clean professional life, his clean personal charac- 
ter. He lived in an atmosphere where scandal never came. Under 
the terrible stress and strain of fifteen years of war and reconstruc- 
tion, with his armor scarcely ever off, and his naked blade scarcely 
ever at rest in its scabbard, he fought a savage fight, but always in 
the open. Others tortured; he desired to draw the line at the not 
unreasonable utilization of the North's unmistakable victory over 
the South. Jobbers swarmed about him; he barred the tnas-uiy 
doors the best he could through all those terrible days of rapine, 
confiscation, and the gathering together of the birds of prey. Oiheis, 
Sodden with the thrift which follows the fawning of demf'g( gu( s, 
cringed constantly at the feet of Lincoln and Grant; Conklii'g 
stood splendidly erect as some huge column supporting an edifice 
wherein Solomon might have greeted and reveled with the Quteu 
of Sheba. 

And how he hated a little, a mean, a sneaking, or a cont( mp t- 
ible thing. The man's whole nature seems to have had wiii-s 
especially granted to soar above tbe partisan hogs in their stits; 
the partisan bullocks horning one another ofl: from the troujtihs of 
public plunder. No margins tempted him ; no ring allurements, 
seductive at every step with valuable spoils, ever attracted his atten- 
tion ; no lobbyist ever dared to approach him with a special plea ; 
across the black paee of the De Golyer contracts, and the infamous 
pa} -roll of the Credit Mobilier thieves, no mortal eye ever saw 
written thereon the white name of Roscoe Conkling. Can the same 
be said for the apostolic sniveler who tried to humble him, to break 
that proud spirit, to shear the locks from that stalwart SamiSon, to 
chain him to the chariot wheels of a detested secretary of siate, to 
insult him in the house of his friends, to crack a master's whip and 
bid him surrender, to banish from all part or lot in a Republican 
administration this heroic Warwick, only knowing how to spend 
millions for defense but not a cent for tribute ? ^ 

Conscious of the perfect rectitude of a life so far spent m the 
service of his friends and his party, not capable of becoming a dwarf, 
that he might escape the volleys of that pigmy brood which had 
come into ephemeral life through the last bloody-shirt foment of 
reconstruction politics, and unable to consort with the man buyers 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 117 

of the Pension Bureau and the two-dollar inundators of Indiana, 
with Star-route Dorsey opening the sluices and the dykes, he put 
away politics and went proudly out into the ranks of the honest 
working people, where he knew the air to be pure, and where he 
was posiiive that he could still maintain his consoling self-respect 
and liis spotless honor. 

And now he is dead in his prime. Possessed of an intellect 
equal to that of any of the great ones gone. Quiet, studious, and 
deR)ted to his profession. Not, perhaps, what in these days might 
be called a popular leader — because his standard was too high and 
his will too unbending — he would have been wise in counsel, mas- 
terful in a cabinet, and superb in the field. Intolerance of shams 
made liim appear at times lordly, supercilious, and dictatorial; but 
b'-hi ad the semblance was the substance, and in extremity every- 
thing else was unreckoned of except the iron. There was iruch in 
common between himself and General Grant, and this fact will go 
far to explain their unselfish and unbroken friendship. Grant never 
whined; neither did Conkling. Grant was firm, resolute and indom- 
itable; so was Conkling. Very late in his second term Grant had 
at last discovered the snares and the pitfalls prepared for him by 
his toadies and his flatterers; Conkling long before had foreseen 
their danger and hastened to his chief with heartfelt and valuable 
warnings. Grant confided in many, Conkling infew; but the middle 
ground upon which they both met and fraternized was the loyal 
respect one had for the other. This, being always the bond of com- 
munion, no matter the separate road each took in response to its 
bidding, each always reached it simultaneously. Hence, amid the 
wreck of all things dear to Grant's ambition at Chicago, Conkling 
went down with the colors. 

He died too soon. There would have been a mighty work for 
him to have done in the near future. To many thinking men the 
nation is on the eve of a crisis. There are elements this day at 
work which are yet to make patriotism once more as precious as 
when our forefathers pledged to freedom whatever they had of life, 
of property, and of sacred honor. There will come by and by ques- 
tions to be settled — some of them pressing, some undeniable, some 
perhaps perilous — which will need for their grappling some such in- 
tellect as Conkling's — clear, incisive, luminous; imbued somewhat 
with omniscience; not afraid of the knife, still less of the caustic; 
seeing the entire Union, unobscured as to the paltry efiicacy of par- 
tisan panaceas, serene even with the ship in the breakers, pon- 
tifical like a priest's, aggressive like a soldier's — where is there such 
an one left for such emergencies in New York, where indeed in the 
United States? 

There be makeshifts in abundance — doughty political physi- 
cians who treat symptoms but never the disease itself. The land is 
full of inanities that gambol on the political green as lambs do in 
blue-grass pastures, when April is in the air, and the south wind 
tells what it yet intends to do for the buds and blossoms. There 
are quacks, and formulas, and nostrums by the shipload. There 
are babblers of finance, and men in buckram to organize and util- 
ize labor movements. There are multitudinous makers of trusts, 
eating up the substance of the people, and feeding competition on 
husks and shavings; but where are the giants to keep the faith and 
keep this blessed land from mortal injury? One has just fallen 
prostrate as some great oak falls, never to rise again. 



118 JUHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

ON SOUTHEKN POETS. 

[Kansas City Times, September 14, 1888.] 

The Atlanta Constitution, in dealing quite lengthily the other 
day with Southern poetry and poets, seems only to know and put 
forward three: Father Kyan, Sidney Lanier, and Paul H. Hayne. 
It is well. No word is said amiss of these. If in a garden of flow- 
ers, they would have been roses; if in a forest of trees, they would 
have been oaks. But the horizon was not far enough away, the 
vision was too much contracted. Any Southern sky with only 
three stars in it is not a benignant sky. Neither is it a sky under 
which the mocking birds will sing their merriest and the young 
lovers linger out longest, none nearer to listen to the old, old story 
than the passion flowers at the gate. 

Where is Poe, that strange, weird, and still undefinable genius, 
whose every verse was a wail, whose every heart-beat was super- 
natural, and whose every gesture took hold upon death? Not a 
poet, you say? If this be so, then what is poetry? If it be poetry 
to make the flesh creep and to be cold and hot by turns, then Poe 
was the wizard of such emotions. He was the man who conjured 
up ghosts, he was the man who so peopled the imagination with 
horrors that it became haunted. Hayne never did this. His flight 
was too near the earth to hear songs that were never sung and words 
that were never spoken. 

Where is Dr. F. O. Tickor and his "Little Giifen of Tennessee," 
a lyric which will remain immortal while the language lasts. 

*'Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire, 
Smitten of prapeshot and gangrene. 
Eighteenth battle and he sixteen 
Spectre ! such as you seldom see, 
Little Giffen of Tennessee." 

Where is Harry B. Flash, the lyrical music in him as splendid 
as in a military band playing as it might play if it were playing for 
Leonidas ? Where the poems indeed from which we make an extract ? 

"By blue Patapsco's billowy dash, 

The tyrant's war shout comes, *' 

Along with the cymbals' fitful clash, 
And the growl of the sullen drums." 

Where is James R. Randall with "Maryland, My Maryland," 
and fifty other ungathered fugitives just as exquisite ? 

Where is John R. Thompson — tender, musical, a ballad maker 
as perfect as Rossetti, a weaver of words as unequaled as Tennyson? 
Where is Henry Timrod, death's hand on him at nineteen, with 
enough odes to make a gold mine out of a sassafrass thicket ? 

Where is W. W. Harney with his "sudden stabs in groves for- 
lorn," and that "Blockade Running," where one old classmate striving 
for Wilmington called out to another old classmate who was pur- 
suing : 

"You'll want boots to follow me 
All night," said the master, 
"With your wrought iron roster. 
Old Geordie of Maine." 

Where is Samuel Minturn Peck, who can be as quaint as James 
Whitcomb Riley, as exquisitely tender as Riley, and as full of that 
rare pathos which makes the fingers of poetry take hold of the heart- 
strings ? 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 119 

Not one of these does the Constitution touch, nor lift up, nor put 
in a frame, nor hang lovingly in its sanctum. This should not be. 
Scant praise at best has Southern literature or Southern writers ever 
received from any source, but mainly because neither had an audi- 
ence. Their territory now, however, is widening and becoming 
more populous. It is not right juet at this peculiar juncture to 
make any invidious distinctions. The Constitution's field is almost 
too limited to breathe in, much less to do a good day's plowing. Its 
Pantheon is wofully lacking in gods. It is a temple with only three 
shrines, while all the outside and abounding space is as desolate as a 
forest without leaves. Perhaps it will fill it later. 

As for the Southern women who have written poetry, we have 
nothing to say, unless it would be to ask the question : Did a 
woman ever write poetry ? If one ever did it has surely not been 
Miss Rives in her " Herod and Mariamne." 

AS TO KING DAYID. 

[Kansas City Times, September 16, 1888.] 

Mr. Ernest Renan, who was once a priest, and who even now 
professes to live in the odor of sanctity, is again busily engaged in 
taking venerable and respected tradition to pieces. Having already 
finished with Christ and His Apostles — having already dealt as he 
was best able with the New Testament, he has now turned him to 
the Old — and it is King David who comes first under fire. 

Renan has a peculiarintellectual development,even for a French- 
man. No writers of this or any other century ever equaled the 
French for lucidity of statement; the vivid power of illustration; 
a satire that is perfectly exquisite; delightful badinage; an irony 
which never purposely corrodes, but if purposely then only upon 
occasion; swift movement; the commingling of tragedy and com- 
edy; an inherent dramatic encompassment that is never at a loss for 
similes or situations — while to marshal all these as is desirable, 
using either of itself or the w^hole together as a mass, there is the 
scaccato or epigrammatic style which to all others is so incomparable. 
None can write biography like the French. As for memoirs, these 
in their hands are unapproachable. 

Renan has every one of these valuable gifts at his disposal — 
always valuable to an author— and he has more. He has the educa- 
tion of a Jesuit. This means about fifteen years of hard, uninter- 
rupted study before it is supposed that a man knows anything. He 
is the fluent master of ten languages, among the ten being Persian, 
Turkish, the Hebrew, and the Arabic. Probably at least three of 
these he learned in order all the more readily to get at the Bible and 
attempt to destroy many of its idols yet dear to the human heart. 

Before he began his " Life of Christ " he spent three years in 
Egypt and Palestine, The Sultan then owned the two countries, 
and hence his knowledge of the Turkish and Arabic must have 
stood him in most excellent stead. His sister accompanied him, an 
enthusiast like himself, as he was then. They went anywhere and 
everywhere. They appeared to have no idea of fear. When night 
came they pitched their tents. The Arabs did not seem to understand 
them; the Bedouins forgot to even ask them for backsheesh. 

The sister never returned. She died under a date palm in the 
desert, tenderly nursed, it is true, having skillful physicans at her 
side, and plenty of female attendants. But the priest, where was 
he? Her brother? — no, her God. 



120 JOHN NEWMAN EDWAKDS. 

Time went on, and Renan got further and further away from 
the sweet recollections of his college days, from the tender influ- 
ences of a gentle and benignant life, from the restraints of an intel- 
lectual discipline that he so much needed as a safeguard against 
spiritual shipwreck, from well ordered fields wherein nothing grew 
that was noxious or told of harm, from old friends and old associa- 
tions, and the end then came speedily. The ardent young believer 
was a hardened skeptic. He had grown gray in unbelief in anight, 
Eadowed as he was intellectually, what a spectacle and what a ruin! 
Using the gifts which Providence had so lavishly bestowed upon 
him to enlighten and succor mankind, he squandered them in terri- 
ble attacks upon the very foundation of society itself. 

And they were terrible, these attacks of his. The " Life of 
Christ" is one of the most insidious, dangerous, yet attractive 
books in any language. The danger lies in its distillation. Its 
poison tastes like honey. On the edge of every pitfall there is a 
fringe of roses. This fringe is also a screen. One reaches out for 
a rose and instead finds engulfment. The full flow and flood of the 
tide of the narrative is poetry set to music. As the children fol- 
lowed the flute of the Pied Piper of Hamelin into the heart of the 
mountain, never to be seen of mortal again, so young men follow 
the words and the thoughts of this wizard of the pen, and the result 
in all too many cases is the hardening of the heart and the stiffening 
of the neck. 

His ' ' Lives of the Apostles " is not so sweet to the taste nor so 
delightful to the palate. It jars often. It is at times harsh, rasp- 
ing, bitter. Not content with killing his victim he often chooses to 
skin him. As he gets older of course this spirit will grow upon 
him. He will not seek to seduce so much from this on as to demol- 
ish. Scantier and scantier will become the wine he offers from his 
own clear champagne country, and plentier and plentier the acrid 
brew and the brew which burns like acid. 

One can easily see this sort of feeling deepening over and about 
Renan in his recent comments upon David. In three numbers of a 
leading Paris review he has dealt with this King of Israel. He 
describes him as a black-hearted hypocrite. A selfish egotist, 
incapable of a sentiment of sympathy or a disinterested idea. A 
coward in war, who wept over Absalom and then broke bread with 
his murderer. He declares that he kept a harem, and that, although 
he did dabble to some extent in poetry, he never wrote the Psalms. 
He contrasts him with Saul, making of one a hero and a warrior of 
great renown — of the other a sneak and a trickster. David's deed 
of putting Uriah in front of the battle to be killed as he was, in 
order to take to wife his beautiful widow Bathsheba, is made into a 
ferocious picture which probably no other hand could paint except 
the hand of such a monster. 

But the question arises, and it is a very natural one. What has 
brought about this exhumation of David? And what will happen 
to Solomon when Renan gets to him, who was tlie son of that very 
Bathsheba the savage Frenchman has just taken as a text to crucify 
her imperial ravisher? One can see no earthly good to arise from it 
all. If Renan writes just to see how powerfully he can write, then 
it must be admitted that he does it to perfection, although his 
inspiration now appears to be of the devil. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 121 

DR. JOSEPH M. WOOD. 

LKausas City Times, September 20, 1888,] 

One of the liglits of the medical world — clear, luminous, a great 
beacon set as it were upon a high hill — has suddenly gone out for- 
ever. How death must have rejoiced when it laid him low. No 
more mortal enemy of the inexorable destroyer ever lived in the 
land. Fur more than fifty years man and boy he grappled with it, 
rescued its victims, drove it from bedsides almost ready for the 
shroud, fought it hand to hand across a coverlet, routed it from 
hoaseliolds where every room was an intrenchment, smote it until 
even its terrors were put to flight, snapped the shaft of its imme- 
morial spear in sheer derision, taunted it with its impotency, and 
finally became such an implacable foe that it seemed to avoidhimas 
if he were superhuman. 

And now to think that in this last encounter, he who had saved 
so many could not save himself. But then this splendid defender of 
his race liad grown gray in the war harness. An active battle well 
on to fifty years long had left him worn, and old, and less able to 
withstand the final onset. He had the frame of a giant — yes, but 
he had also done the work of a giant. He had the strength of any 
four ordinary men — yes, but he put it forth so lavishly in supplying 
the demands of his profession that when he needed a reserve for 
himself that reserve had been exhausted. He had the buoyant life 
and vitality of some great couquerer — yes, even as Cortez, but he 
poured them all out for others, never caring seemingly to know if 
. a day would not come when a little, at least, of this vast wealth 
should have been laid away for the final grapple. 

And yet how could he see or know or care about any of these 
things — how could he take note to day what might happen or be 
required for to-morrow? He lived for others. He was one of the 
most generous, unselfish and lovable of men. A tale of want, or 
sorrow, or suffering made him as a little child, he, this giant of a sur- 
geon, whose very operating knife had about it something almost of 
inspiration. The record of his good deeds could only have been 
written by the recording angel. And they have been so written, 
never fear. And many a page they took, shining all over and 
through as though the pinions of the heavenly dove had been folded 
there to make them blessed and resplendent. 

Why, this man would often wait for the darkness to cover him 
before lie departed on his missions of mercy. He wrought out the 
miracles both of his heart and his intellect by stealth. 

To surprise him in any act of charity was to put him to flight. 
If any one ever spoke of it in his presence he would go away pained. 
That hand which was all iron, when the steel was in it, was always 
open when it became necessary to succor as well as to save. No 
matter what the nature of the succor was — whether money, medi- 
cines, food, raiment, care, watchfulness, professional attendance, 
hired nurses — he never hesitated a single moment to open his purse 
or bestow his precious attainments upon the needy and the afflicted. 
Even if his own life had ever depended upon an accurate summing 
up of all these abounding charities, to save it he could not have made 
a report of even a fractional part. Verily, with him the hand that 
did not give never knew in a single instance what the hand which 
did give was doing. 

Once, when cholera was sweeping from the east to the west, and 
over the plains, and across the Rocky Mountains, ravaging remorse- 



122 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

lessly where it touched, Dr. Wood was comiDg from St. Louis to 
Liberty Landing on a crowded emigrant steamer. The steerage 
swarmed with poor folks, men, women and children. Piercing as 
the neigh of a frightened horse the cry arose that the White Specter 
— which leaves the faces of all those whom it has undone so pinched 
and pallid and wan — was aboard the boat, doing the same old 
inevitable work that it had been doing from its home on the Ganges 
to the Pacific Ocean. 

Dr. Wood was just then in the very strength and flower of his 
young manhood. Life was so fair, so fair before him. Perfect 
physical health and perfect physical manhood made all nature 
delicious, and all the world adorable. Every road which ran to the 
future had upon it growing grasses and blooming flowers, and sing- 
ing birds in all the branches of the trees. Death was below him in 
its most appalling character. 

He went below. For nearly a week so far from going to bed 
he never even took oft" his clothes. He did the work of a dozen 
men. His frame, which up to that time had been colossal, now sud- 
denly came to be iron. Plir nature took upon itself attributes even 
unknown to their possessor. He w^as physician, nurse, undertaker, 
consoler, confessor, musician — but, whatever he was, he staid. 

We said musician — yes, musician. Well knowing the power of 
imagination over the human mind in all epidemics, even in those not 
so virulent as a cholera epidemic, Dr. Wood took his medicine case 
in one hand and his fiddle in the other. He was an excellent per- 
former then. After seeing and prescribing for all of his patients he 
would play them a lively tune — something that would make self 
quit preying upon self, something that would make the heart beat 
faster, and the icy circulation strive just one more time to get at all 
the ex'.remlties. 

What a spectacle! Here was death, intrenched in the reeking 
atmosphere of a steerageway, dtfied with the rollicking tunes of a 
master fiddler. It was Mirabeau's death song materialized on a 
western river: "Crown me with flowers, intoxicate me with per- 
fumes and let me die to the sounds of delicious music." 

But they did not die, many of them. Considering the unfavor- 
able nature of the surroundings and the malignant type of the 
disease, many were saved. And what was Dr. Wood's rew^ard? 
The prayers and the blessings of these poor survivors which fol- 
lowed him for years after in the shape of letters and little tokens in 
the way of remembrance and afl"ection. Through rigid quarantine 
and perpetual fumigation the cholera was kept from the cabin pas- 
sengers." Audit was well. Dr. Wood's mission wasin the steerage 
and there he meant to stay even though he were stricken down in 
mid-battle. God, however, spared him to finish his life, and to 
l)uild some priceless monuments of science and skill to adorn his 
noble profession. 

Dr. Wood, in its very essence and purity, was a medical philos- 
opher. He went up from cause to effect with the rapid stride of the 
born commander. Said Bichat, that wonderful Frenchman, who 
died too young for the sake of humanity: "The discovery of the 
cause is the discovery of the remedy." To this end Dr. Wood 
marched with a set will that never relaxed or yielded. His glance 
was instantaneous. He seemed to fathom disease through the appli- 
cation of a sixth sense which might well be named intuition. His 
diagnosis was as unerring as the tide's ebb and flow. His resources 
in any desperate crisis were as manifold as they were instantly 
evoked. No extremity, however desperate, ever confused his 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 123 

searching glance or ruffled the calm serenity of the great physician. 
Hence, when many of his brother practitioners, had patients sup- 
posed to be nearing the inevitable hour. Dr. Wood was most gener- 
ally called in for consultation. So frequently was this done that 
the practice passed into a proverb. A lady one day made it vivid 
by an epigram. Awakening from a deep sleep she saw Dr. Wood 
standing by her bedside, and exclaimed: " What, then, is it so bad 
as this? I see that Dr. Wood is here." 

So remarkable had his fame become for snatching people f i cm 
the very jaws of death, and so widely known had this reputaiicn 
been made, both in medicine and surgery, that he was sent for al 
various times to New York, Baltimore, Washington City, upon sev- 
eral occasions to Philadelphia, often to St. Louis, and to as many as 
two hundred places iu the State of Missouri. These demands were 
constantly made upon him until he gradually withdrew from his 
more arduous labors to devote more time to his own personal and 
devoted friends. 

Dr. Wood had a face like the face of that famous English sur- 
geon. Sir Astley Cooper. Genius beamed from every line of it — from 
every form, fashion, contour and feature. In repose it was some- 
times sad, yet always august. Butwhen that peculiar smile of his 
broke over it, then it shoue as the east shines when low down on its 
uttermost verge the shadows begin to lift a little and the dawn tostir 
therein, peering over the edge and waiting to bless the world. It 
had often and often been remarked for its fascination and from the 
way it made his face transfigured. Seen in the sick chamber, it 
brought hope, faith, help, consola tion. Seen in social life it attracted 
all who wanted solace, confidence and unrestrained communion. 

And now it will never more be seen again anywhere this side 
of the Wonderful River. He had lived his life as some huge old 
oak which the wind for years could not prevail against, the light- 
nings shiver, nor the storms uproot. But, stricken at last by time, 
which strikes all earthly things to dust, it falls a forest monarch, 
never to be upreared again in all the ages. 

So fell our giant, who was yet full of all gentleness, and ten- 
derness, and charity, and good deeds, and a stainless manhood, and 
a fame that will endure while intellect does homage to intellect, and 
genius has a shrine where all its devotees can kneel and worship. 
A life so grandly and so unselfishly lived sinks from the sight of 
those who yet remain with the halo of noble deeds about it, and 
leaves behind the exam.ple of its own magnanimous dedication to 
duty and to humanity. 

But beyond? What of that? Ah— 

" Who shall murmur or misdoubt 
When God's great sunshine finds us out ? " 

WAR QUAKER FASHION. 

[Kansas City Times, September 31, 1888.] 

The'telegraph tells us that the Third German Army Corps, led 
by the Emperor, was repulsed after a hot battle in an attack upon 
Berlin, which was defended by the guards. 

How many were killed? None. How many were wounded? 
None. Then it was a Quaker battle? Not absolutely necessar}- — it 
was only a part of the autumn manceuvrers. 

By the way, does this mimic sort of warfare amount to anything? 



124 JOHN KEWMAN EDWARDS. 

It can have no possible feature in common "with war in its sure 
enough form and fashion. Sham war goes by certain fixed rules 
arranged over a map at night to be carried out in the morning. This 
brigade is to do so and so, as will this division, as will this corps. 
The attack is planned as would be a pleasure trip, the defense also. 
Nothing is left to skill, to superior generalship, to the sudden mass- 
ing of strong columns upon weak ones, to the swift concentration of 
a more powerful artillerj^; while last, but by no means least, nothing 
is left to that intangible yet all powerful thing called by the ancients 
fate and by the moderns fortune. Charles V. perfectly understood 
it when the great Conde baffled him at Metz: "I am too old," he 
said. "Fortune needs to be wooed by younger lovers." 

On the other hand, actual war calls every resource of the com- 
mander into instant action, and demand? that he shall be capable on 
the moment to seize upon and make favorable every circumstance 
as it arises. It isimperatively necessary that the army which attacks 
shall be governed largely by the movements of the army which 
resists. A plan of battle is all well enough, but it must be a plan 
that will stretch for leagues, contract for leagues, change its 
entire sum and substance or be of such a nature as to be 
abandoned altogether when it is no longer fit to be relied upon 
in the face of its surroundings. In other words, it is one thing 
to plan and another thing to execute. Actual war gives scope id all 
that is daring, wary, crafty, impassive and omniscient in man; 
mimic war puts him on an easy-going horse, and bids him ride leis- 
urely down a certain road and halt at a certain stopping place for 
the night. Actual war means to get there first with the most men, 
and then go for everything in sight; mimic war means that if so and 
so happens, then so and so must be done. Here are your metes and 
bounds. Those whom you have to encounter have also their metes 
and bounds. On each side they are inexorable. Do what you are 
told and attend to your own business. 

Therefore we ask again, Do these mimic manoeuvrers ever 
amount to anything? "I nevermancGuvrer,"said Grant. "Wherever 
I find General Lee I shall attack him." All of which did not pre- 
vent him from grinding to powder by sheer attrition. "The com- 
pany is the unit," said Napoleon. "It is my captains who have 
won all my victories. Drill for me your companies perfectly and I 
will do all the balance." The Roman legions gave all their spare 
time to rigid drill and discipline. Marlborough made his soldiers 
well niffh invincible by launching them against the enemy. The 
suggestion merely of a mimic manceuvrer to old Frederick the Great 
would have brought a blow from his walking stick. Wellington in 
all his life never perhaps dreamed of one. Hannibal rested when he 
did not fight. Alexander feasted when he was not marching. 

Who knows, however, but what the times have changed greatly? 
It may be that the German Emperor knows his business much better 
than any one else can in the American republic, whose standing army 
could be comfortably camped in a twenty-acre field. Any way Ber- 
lin is safe, and that is something to be thankful for. 

WILL-O" THE WISP. 

[Kansas City Times, September 22, 1S88.] 

There has been published for some time, in newspapers as well 
as in magazines, a wonderful story of a hidden treasure, said to have 
been buried by an Indian when Pizarro conquered Peru. Accord- 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 125 

ing to reports, which break forth every now and then as though the 
suoject were a new one, many a hunt has been made for it and many 
a hunter has given up the search, baffled and disappointed. 

And no wonder, if they take the following as a lamp for their 
feet and a light for their e^^es. It is from the American Magazine, 
and it reads: 

"Everyone who has read Prescott's fascinating volumes knows 
what followed. With the aid of the Spaniards, Atahualpa conquered 
his brother. When he lay a prisoner in the hands of the guests he 
had treated so hospitably, he offered to fill his prison with gold if 
they would release him. They agreed, and his willing subjects 
brought the treasure, but the greedy Spaniards demanded more. 
Runners were hurried all over the country, and the simple, unselfish 
people surrendered all their wealth to save their king. But Piz^irro 
became tired of Waiting for the treasure, and the men in charge < f it, 
upon hearing the news that Atahualpa had been strangled, buried 
the gold and silver in the L'anganati, where the Spaniards have been 
seaiching for it ever since." 

"Everybody who has read Prescott's fascinating volumes 
knows" no such thing. Atahualpa never saw a Spaniaid, and 
most probably never heard of one, until seven months, and moi^t 
likely two years, after he had whipped his brother in two pitched 
battles, seized upon his capital and dispossessed him of his territory. 
It ^\'as the old story of a divided inheritance. Huayna Capac, by 
far the greatest Inca of all of a long line of Peruvian Incas, divided 
his kingdom, at his death, between his two sons, Huascar and Ata- 
hualpa. The first was mild, generous, lovable, merciful and ju^t ; 
the last was fierce, intractable and savage. He rose upon Huascar, 
conquered him, and dethroned him. Then came Pizarro, who 
lured Atahualpa into the city of Caxamalca. He came accompa- 
nied by an armed following of frome six thousand. These were 
butch -tred to a man and the person (»f the Inca himself seized upon 
and held in close confinement. The declaration that he offered 
Pizarro as a ransom his prison full of gold is simply laughable. It 
was only one apartment which Atahualpa promised to fill, and this 
was seventeen feet broad by twenty-two feet leng. The height was 
indicated by a line drawn nine feet from the floor. Nothing was to 
be melted down. The gold was to retain the original form of the 
articles into which it had first been manufactured. 

The line had not been anywhere even nearly reached— and it is 
quite probable that it could never have been reached — when the 
Spanish soldiers began to clamor furiously for a division. Pizarro 
either could not or would not gainsay them. He ordered some very 
skillful goldsmith to reduce everything to ingots, or bars of a uni- 
form standard, which were afterward nicely weighed under the 
superintenderce of the royal inspectors. The total amount of 'gold 
wa^ ^'ound to be about $15,500,000 of our money. One fifth of this 
was sent to the then emperor of Spain, Charles V., which he duly 
received and duly macle returns for in the shape of very valualile 
land grants and most extraordinary privileges bestowed upon the 
conquerors. The balance of this gigantic amount of ransom money 
was jtext distributer!, at a ratio fully agreed upon, among Pizarro 's 
officers and men. Kot a word {<=■, said anywhere about a single gold 
bar being buried by Indian or what rot. The word L'langanali is 
never written on a single page of Prescott's history which deals 
with this dark, this thrilling, this almost miraculous episode in 
Peruvian conquest, the conquest itself being the greatest miracle of 
them all. 



126 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

The final manner of the killing of Atahualpa has never been 
satisfactorily explained. Whether he was strangled, garroted, or 
burnt, is yet an open question lor debate. He certainly lost his life. 
He had murdered his own brother, his rightful sovereign, and to the 
third generation he had destroyed every relation who was supposed 
to contain a drop of the blood of the mighty Inca, Huayna Capac. 
The surroundings of Pizarro were desperate. At the best he never 
had over 700 Spanish soldiers all told, and he was in the midst of a 
hostile population of seven or eight millions. It seems incredible, 
but it is true. Worse circumstanced, and more fearfully beset, his 
kinsman and townsman, Cortez, did the same with Gautemozin, the 
last Aztec monarch of Mexico. 

The silly paragraph from the magazine above quoted would 
never have been referred to at all had it not been accompanied by me 
declaration that a company in New York was being formed for the 
purpose of hunting for the buried treasures of Atahualpa which, if 
buried at all, were^buried nearly 350 years ago. Should it be formed 
and should any of its prospectors go pestering about ihe site of the 
ancient Caximalca, the Peruvians themselves would laugh them out 
of South America. 

By the way, this buried treasure business is no new will-o'-lhe- 
wisp — no new Jack-with-his-lautern. They are still hunting for 
the gold the pirate Kidd hid somewhere out of sight. Acre after 
acre bas been dug over or plowed over to find the treasures of La- 
fitte, although Lafltte had been amnestied long before he died peace- 
fully in hislbed, and had no need to bury any treasures. There are 
three islands in the Pacific Ocean, off the Mexican port of Tepic, 
called " The Three Marys," which have been regularly explored for 
half a century by hunters hunting for the gold that that cruel buc- 
caneer Morgan must surely have buried somewhere on one of the 
three, according to tradition. But after all, perhaps, it is just as 
well as not to let these sort of cranks complacently alone. They 
are perfectly harmless and their credulity is one of the few imbe- 
cile phases of human nature which amuses the multitude. 

WOLESLEY ON M'CLELLAN AND LEE. 

[Kansas City Times, September 30, 18S8.] 

•'And lastly, let me glance at General Lee. Lee's strategy when 
he fought in defense of the Southern capital, and threatened and 
finally struck at that of the United States, marks him as one of the 
greatest captains of this or any other age. No man has ever fought 
an uphill and a losing game with greater firmness, or ever displayed 
a higher order of true military genius than he did when in command of 
the Confederate Army. The knowledge of his profession displayed 
b}'- General McClellan was considerable, and his strategic concep- 
tions were admirable, but he lacked one attribute of a general, 
without which no man can ever succeed in war — he was never able 
to estimate with any accuracy the numbers opposed to him. It was 
the presence in Lee of that intuitive genius for war which McClellan 
lacked, which again and again gave him victory, even when he was 
altogether outmatched in numhers.''— Lord Woledey in Fortnightly 
Beview. 

Why single out McClellan for these kind of comparisons? 
Why make him alone, of all the Federal commanders, the one sole 
standard by which shall be tried the military successes and abilities 
of Lee? Lord Wolseley has not alone done this, although he has 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 127 

done it often; but the Count of Paris, also, Colonel Chesney, Colonel 
Freemantle, Count Von Borcke and a multitude of American writers 
good, bad and indiflerent. Why not occasionally range up along- 
side of him McDowell or Burnside or Hooker or Halleck or Pope 
or Mead or Grant? *He fought all of these at some one time or 
another, and surely out of the vast array of writers that could be 
easily enumerated others besides McClellan might be contrasted 
with the great Virginian. 

We have an abiding faith in the military genius of Lord Wol- 
seley. It is fashionable, we know, to dismiss him with a sneer, and 
ridicule his capacity because he has only fought Zulus, negroes and 
Arabs. This is not all of the truth. He has fought Russians as 
well, the stubbornest race in all the history of war except the Eng- 
lish, and a rac3 that stands killing with something of the fatalism 
of tlie Turk, and much of the stoicism of the North American 
Indian, 

General Jo Shelby once called upon Marshal Bazaine — that time 
he commanded the French in Mexico — on business for some of his 
old soldiers. They wanted to enlist under Bazaine, and Shelby 
went directly to the Marshal in their behalf. Business done, wine 
was brought. Over this the two men lingered longer than either 
thought. One episode of the conversation impressed Shelby much. 
Said Bazaine, in substance: "I should like more than you may 
imagine to meet this Grant of yours on the battlefield. He should 
pick fifty thousand Americans and I fifty thousand Frenchmen." 
Shelby answered with a smile, yet boldly: " In that event. Marshal, 
I fear much that you would be worsted." 

Something of a desire similar to Bazaine's must be felt by a great 
many to see Lord Wolseley in command of a British army that was 
to play its part upon some great European battlefield. It is then 
that we firmly believe he would prove himself to be another Marl- 
borough. We do not say Wellington because Wellington was a 
mere episode in the great French drama then drawing rapidly toward 
its close. He entered by a back door into Spain when Napoleon was 
dreaming of Moscow, He found a nation in arms to meet him, and 
greet him, and help him against the invader. And of what a race 
of people was this nation composed! The Romans, world conquer- 
ors, never conquered Spain. Two of the Scipios perished there. 
Julius Ceesar left the old Iberians unsubdued In their mountuins. 
Hannibal barely escaped destruction there. The ,3aracpns swept 
over the land like a tempest, and as suddenly subsided. The Moors 
staid longer, but w^ere finally exterminated. And it was with the 
descendants of this invincible Spanish race that Napoleon was sup- 
posed to be fighting — lazily, languidly, and desultorily — when Well- 
ington came. True, the demigod went in person once and ran every- 
thing into the ocean, British and all, but his heari; was beyond the 
Niemen. He was pluming his eagles for that swoop upon Russia 
which was rewarded with St. Helena. We say Marlborough, there- 
fore, and not Wellington. One thing Lord Wolseley appears never 
to have understood — nor any of the balance of the foreign authors for 
that matter — that McClellan fought Lee in the splendid youth, vigor 
and physical development of the Southern Confederacy. Every sol- 
dier following this flag w^as a volunteer. The pride of emulation 
between the States begot a spirit of heroic endeavor that in its intens- 
ity was truly Homeric, Men rushed to battle as to a marriage feast. 
They clamored for it, they adorned themselves for it, they suffered 
and endured all things joyously for it, and, when once being in, so 
bore themselves that'the world wondered how regiments of almost 



128 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

boys as it were could endure to be decimated, and yet close up, 
shout, and go forward. 

To meet this army of Northern Virginia, McClellan organized t he 
Army of the Potomac. That army saved the Union. There is not 
a Federal general living or dead who could have faced Lee when he 
faced him and held his own as he held it ; bedeviled as he was by the 
idiots at Washington ; hated and betrayed by Stanton ; thwarted by 
an insane fear forever rampant of the capital being in danger ; his 
most completely prepared and cherished movements constantly inter- 
fered with ; bewildered by a mass of chaotic and driveling orders 
sufficient to swamp a man-of-war ; caressed to-day and banished 
to-morrow — to stand up against all these things, we say, and a multi- 
tude more just as hurtful, weakening and tormenting — and fight Lee 
week after week, retreating, it may be, but forever fighting , and 
losing nothing but the ground which he had first taken himself, is 
to prove McClellan the real hero and commander on the side of the 
Federals. 

And yet Grant gets all the glory. For a time — yes. During 
this generation and another? — perhaps. The history, however, of 
these events has yet all to be written, Eulogy is not history, nor 
laudation, nor special pleas, nor messes of political pottage, nor 
favoritism, spread-eagleism and Badeauism. Hislory is a surgeon. 
It goes at a thing knife in hand. It lays bare veins, nerves, arteries, 
bones, muscles, all the organs, the whole physical structure of man. 
Its nomenclature is inexorable. It covers up nothing, suppresses 
nothing, has no shame, burns no incense, worships no idols. It is 
the angel by the gate with truth's flaming sword in its hand. Never 
more into the garden can there come again its prostitutes, its 
revelers and its defilers. 

When Grant came he had the country by the tail. He had only 
to grunt and the earth shook with the tread of reinforcements. 
He had only to crook one finger and Stanton fell upon his knees. 
He had only to sulk one day in his tent and there was crape on the 
doors of the executive mansion. At the rate of six to one he ground 
Lee to powder. That proportion of sheep could have overcome a 
lion. But for the grinding, as we have said , Grant got all the glory. 
So be it. The truth, the purity, the integrity and the priceless abil- 
ity of such a man as McClellan are wonderfully out of place in a 
republic. Republics honor and adore only those things which hap- 
pen to be in at the death. 



CLEVELAND RETIRES TO PRIVATE LIFE. 

[Kansas City Times, February 18, 1889.] 

Precisely two weeks before the completion of his fifty-second 
birthday President Cleveland will retire from the chief magistracy 
of the Nation. He is in the full prime of his manhood; in the full 
perfection of his life and strength. He was the youngest, save one, 
of all the presidents, when inaugurated. General Grant being his 
junior by but a single year. He is now several years younger than 
a majority of the presidents were when elected. The future ought 
to be, and no doubt is, very fair before him. He can with much 
calmness and s^lf -possession look forward to a long period of activ- 
ity and usefulness in his profession, and it is with no little pride and 
satisfaction that his countrymen may regard his decision to return 
again to business. It settles for the time, and perhaps for all time, 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 129 

the question of pensioning the ex-presidents. It is a practical illus- 
tration, in fact, of Jeffersonian Democracy. 

In more ways than one President Cleveland has shown himself 
to be a remarkable man. When he was elected to his present high 
office the Democratic party had been out of power for twenty-three 
years. Everywhere the declaration was made that the conservative 
forces of the country not only distrusted it but were afraid of it. 
Many believed in such talk, however much it was full of utter ab- 
surdity, and folded their arms in mute acceptance of an assertion 
which was composed equally of boast, greed and invidious lying. 
It remained for Cleveland to give all such specious claims their 
swift quietus, and he goes out of office as much respected and 
depended upon as any of his predecessors, no matter his name or at 
what period in the history of the republic he was president. 

He came at a time when it was needful that a halt should be 
called. Monopoly — born of the Civil War and strengthened and 
fenced about by every sort of congressional enactment which could 
render it less and less amenable to assault — was in complete posses- 
sion of the nation. A tariff — higher in its rates of protection and 
heavier in the weight of its burdens than any tariff the people had 
ever before known or thought possible — was simply devouring agri- 
culture and all the productions of agriculture. Public extravagance 
ha4 grown to be a public curse. It pervaded every branch of the 
civil service, and kept the national treasury, for atleastnine months 
in the year, swept as clean and as bare as a threshing floor. It was 
.the era of jobs, of rings, of all sorts of margins for enterprising 
boodlers, for irresponsible legislators, and for a partisan army of 
foragers who looked upon the General Government in the light of a 
great protector, who owed every one of them a living and a fat liv- 
ing at that. The only thing, therefore, to be considered was best 
how to get at it, how to make it as bountiful as possible and how 
to squeeze out of the Federal funds as many dollars as could 
possibly be laid hands upon or in some manner circumvented. 
Centralization was the rule, while to legislate the least in f ii vor of 
the people was looked upon as time thrown away and energies 
wasted. 

The question then was not so much as to whether a Democrat 
could or could not be elected president, but entirely as to the kind 
of a Democrat. No milk sop, no easy-going politician conttnt to let 
things as they were abide as they were; no ambitious aspirant who 
after he had once been chosen chief magistrate would make one 
entire administration so shape itself as to secure another; no trim- 
mer, time-server, or a man afraid of responsibility. A sort of halt- 
ing, hesitating, half smothered cry came up from the masses, "Give 
us iron!" and they got iron. 

If the country had been raked fore and aft a sterner man than 
Cleveland could not have been found, nor one more stubborn, nor 
one more determined to do his duty despite all personal conse- 
quences. He instantly called a halt. He attacked monopoly in 
its very den, surrounded by the bones of its myriads of victims. 
He struck the shield of the'high protective tariff with the iron point 
of his lance, which meant a combat to the death, and it had to 
muster its last man and its last dollar just to hold him at bay. He 
did not seek to know what enemies he was causing to rise up against 
him. He believed that he was right and he pressed forward to the 
attainment of his objects with whip and spur His own, simple, 
high-spirited and patriotic course felled sectionalism to the earth at 
a single blow. If he did not kill, he certainly put it beyond all 



130 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

signs of life and motion during the time, at least, of his own admin- 
istration. He cut down expenses; saved millions to the taxpayers, 
economized in a multitude of practical ways; secured for actual 
settlement an area of squandered territory as large as all of New 
England; proved to the nation that the Democratic party was the 
best party after all to rule over it — best for its peace, progress and 
development — and that it could never have or enjoy the blessings of 
perfect local self-government until this party was permitted to hold 
and dispense power for not less than the lifetime of a single gen- 
eration. 

That he was beaten for re-election proves nothing. He accom- 
plished splendidly the objects of his mission. He gave the people 
time to stop awhile, to think and to look well about them. Time 
will do the balance. He could have won easily the second time if 
he had held his peace. Most men would have done so, but true to 
his honest convictions, both of head and heart, Cleveland cried out 
against the evils and the times, and bade his party do a giant's battle 
against them. And defeat or no defeat, the Democratic party 
to-day is more powerful than ever. 

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. 

[Kansas City Times, February 25, 1889.] 

In more senses than one George Washington was the reai father 
of his country. His fame abides with the people as firmly as it did 
the day of Yorktown or Saratoga, and his name is just as much 
dwelt upon and revered as when he delivered his farewell 
address. Modern history makes mention of no actor in great and 
stirring events — even in events so momentous as the founding of a 
nation — who held the love and veneration of his countrymen so long 
and so sincerely. 

In referring to the Seven Years' War, begun by Frederick the 
Great, Voltaire said: "Such was the complication of political inter- 
ests that a caniton shot tired in Americacould give the signal that 
would set Europe in a blaze." Not quite. It was not a cannon shot, 
but a volley from the hunting pieces of a few backwoodsmen, com- 
manded by a Virginian youth, George Washington. 

To us of this day the result of the American part of the war 
seems a foregone conclusion. Itwas far from being so; andveryfar 
from being so regarded by our forefathers. The numerical superi- 
ority of the British colonies was offset by organic weaknesses fatal 
to vigorous and united action. Nor at the outset did they or the 
mother country aim at conquering Canada, but only at pushing back 
her boundaries. The possession of Canada was a question of diplo- 
macy as well as of war. If England conquered her she might restore 
her, as she had lately restored Cape Breton. She had, or ought 
to have had a vital interest in keeping France alive on the Amer- 
ican continent. More than one clear eye saw at the middle of the 
last century that the subjection of Canada would lead to a revolt of 
these British colonies in question. So long as an active and enter- 
prising enemy threatened their border they could not break with the 
mother country, because they needed her help. And if the arms of 
France had prospered in the other hemisphere, if she had gained 
in Europe or Asia territories with which to buy back what she 
had lost in America, Canada, in all probability, would have passed 
again into her hands. 

As has been ably and lengthily presented and discussed by a 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 131 

number of French, English and American historians, the most 
momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this 
continent was : Shall France remain here or shall she not ? If, by 
diplomacy or war she had preserved but the half, or le&s than the 
half of her American possessions, then a barrier would have been 
set to the spread of the English speaking races ; there would have 
been no Revolutionary War, and, for a long time, at least, no inde- 
pendence. It was not a question of scanty population strung along 
the banks of the St. Lawrence; it was — or under a government of 
any worth it would have been — a question of the armies and generals 
of France. America owes much to the imbecility of Louis XV., and 
to the ambitious vanity and personal dislikes of his mistress, the 
Pompadour, 

Be these speculations and prognostications, however, as they 
may, when the colonies finally did revolt it took the last man and 
the last dollar just barely to win the fight ; nor would they in all 
probability had it not been for French gold, soldiers and ships. The 
further probability is also great that with their own resources and 
those joined to them from the outside, the colonies would have been 
worsted in the Revolutionary War had not such a man as George 
Washington been on hand to command their armies, and to be at 
once general, lawgiver, statesman, purveyor, breakwater, ark of 
refuge, and a leader of uncommon intellectual resource and iron 
strength and fortitude of character. 

In the sense of a Caesar, a Hannibal, an Alexander, or a Napo- 
leon, it is certain that Washington was not gifted with any such 
military abilities as made these great conquerors world-renowned, 
but he had others which, for his times and circum- 
stances, were just as valuable. He had a patience which nothing 
could ever ruffle, baffle, or make weary. Plis patriotism was so 
high and exalted as to mount almost to the altitude of religious fer- 
vor. His great dignity of person and character caused his soldiers 
to look upon him with awe, and to believe that where he lead it 
could only be glory to follow. In this but in this alone was he the 
counterpart of Wallenstein . He lost battles but he won campaigns. 
He was forced many times to retreat, but he was never routed. In 
this but in this alone was he the counterpart of Frederick the Great. 
His moral courage was equal to his physical, the first making him 
impervious to all fear of taking responsibility, and the last giving 
him conspicuous valor in the face of the most desperate perils and 
surroundings of war. His tenacity and resolution of purpose wassuch 
that these obstacles which to others appeared insurmountable, were 
to him but mere stepping-stones whereby he could mount higher and • 
higher in his country's service. Whether contemplating the immi- 
nent danger the nation ran in the almost successful accomplishment 
of Arnold's treason, or the last death hours of what seemed going to 
be the army's life amid the horrors at Valley Forge, his adjuration 
to his soldiers was Cromwellian that they should perpetually put 
their trust in God and keep their powder dry. Totally devoid of 
all ambition of the sort which most generally comes to either the 
heroes or the dominators in a great war, Congress relied upon him 
implicitly, and followed his suggestions or advice as if his superb 
disinterestednesshad really been "inspiration. He begged only for 
food, clothing, arms and ammunition for his fighting men. 

He lived as they lived, fared as they fared, suffered as they suf- 
fered; while it is out of such stuff that both victors and martyrs are 
made. To the first class belong Cortez, the two Pizarros, Garibaldi, 
Bolivar, Robert Bruce, William Tell, Marshal Nev and Gustavus 



133 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Adolphus. To the last class belong Harold, Alfred the Great, 
Henry of Navarre, Gordou, Lawrence, Havelockand William Wal- 
lace. Offered the garments of royalty, he pushed them aside, not 
as C;esnr did the crown to seize it later, but because his conscience 
was high and holy, and because he had fought for the real body of 
liberty iu all of ita truth, essence and substance, and not for its sham, 
its make-shift and its counterfeit presentiments. 

In the light now of all the past — which still shines so vivid, so 
instructive, and so consoling — where was the American soldier who 
could have taken Washington's place and created the American 
republic? Greene, Gates, Charles Lee, Sullivan, Putnam, Hamil- 
ton, Burr, Schuyler, Arnold — admitting him true — or any of the 
balance of his more prominent subordinates? As well contend that 
all of his marshals combined could have made the only great 
Napoleon. 

There is not a patriotic citizen to-day in the land but who 
should take upon himself a labor of love in teaching his children 
the grand patriotism and the spotless integrity of this superb char- 
acter. He knew neither envy, detraction, littleness of soul, malice, 
jealousy, fault-finding, nor invidious favoritism. It was a character 
luminous with good deeds and with a devotion to country that 
some few in history may have equaled, but not one who has ever 
surpassed. 

TIME MAKES ALL THINGS EVEN. 

[Kansas Cit^ Times, October 8, 1889.] 

The order had gone forth to destroy Robespierre. That mon- 
ster who, when he came out of the charnal house went into the 
totnb, was come at last to the place where an eye had to be rendered 
up for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Under the fire of those mer- 
ciless accusation-^ and arraignments which shriveled him up as some 
old parchment in flames, he turned green. It was a way he had. 
Where other men, so bestead, turned pale, this one turned green. 
He essayed to speak, stammered, halted over his w^ords, was not 
articulate, and finally stood still, speechless, yet with his lips a 
working. Then Lasource thundered out: "The blood of Dauton 
chokes thee, Robespierre!" 

Through Blaine the blood of Conkling is about to choke Harri- 
son. From the grave a skeleton hand has been stretched forth to 
press the crimson chalice to his lips and force its drinking to the 
uttermost drop. The letters of Dr. Watson, Conkling's^ life-time 
physician, and George C. Gorham, a well-known stalwart repub- 
lican, have both been published. Each but voices the views and 
investigations of a multitude of Conkling republicans who write no 
letters and fall into the hands of no newspaper reporters. In New 
York the voters who go to make up this class are numerous, well 
organized and powerful. Call that dominating influence wdiich per- 
meates them and welds them together as a steel bar a sentiment, if 
you please, but beware of that sentiment, no matter whether in noli- 
tics or what not, which makes brave men cry out and puts brave 
men to working. Right there desperation is born, and from that 
comes any act or deed within the encompassment of human intellect 
or human fixedness of purpose. 

Conkling was the idol of his following. Such was his person- 
ality or individuality that those who served under his banner felt 
more for him than the ordinary respect felt by the private for his 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 133 

chief — they loved him even as David loved Jonathan. His hopes 
were their hopes, his aims theirs, his ambition theirs, his wounds 
made their bodies bleed, the blows rained upon his devoted head 
brought them to their knees, and when in the last onset he went 
down before the blackest and basest desertion and betrayal ever 
known to American politics, they went down with him, all their 
bands playing and all their flags flying in the air. 

Nor was it any wonder that such a man had lavished upon him 
so much of constancy and devotion. In politics he was never a 
trimmer, adapting means to ends and lying, not alone to impose 
upon mortal credulity, but even to fool God. He never went back 
from the front leaving his best to die there because lie was a coward. 
He never apologized. The human mind is so constituted that the 
man who apologizes before he fights is already forsworn and pil- 
loried. He never stole anything. At a period when Grant made 
legislators out of looters, governors out of jackboots and judges out 
of demijohns, Conkling held his nose with white, clean hand while 
tlie vultures of reconstruction were devouring the South. Roguery 
was culminating. Robeson and his pals had stolen a navy. One of 
the Shermans had been driven from the bench for bribery and pecu- 
lation. A secretary of war, caught with every pocket bulged out 
with boodle, had built for him abridge of gold to retreat beyond 
the reach of the penitentiary. A secretary of the interior, selling 
decisions in bales, broke down under the weight of accumulated 
spoils, and confessed to one-half in order to retain the other. Blaine 
stood before the nation branded and disgraced. Another speaker, 
Colfax, had been driven ignominiously from public life. The 
Stir-route revealments had'made the masses shudder. Default- 
ers in every department of the civil service piled up fortunes and 
decamped. Pillage was everywhere. It was no infamy to steal, and 
the bigger the pile the swifter the condonement. Would the storm 
ever abate, the waters ever subside, the light ever flasb forth in the 
east, the crest of Ararat ever rear itself up through the infinite black- 
ness of darkness to greet the sunrise and the morning? 

Through it all, however, Conkling stood as some great pillar of 
Parian marble, without a fleck, a flaw, a spot, a stain, a fracture, or 
asoilment. No whisper even marred the faultless array of a splen- 
did integrity. Proud, scorning the public thieves with all the 
scorn of his magnificent nature, heroic in the management of his 
party, stricken to the heart at the sight of so much fraud, violence, 
and venality, and yet unwilling to overthrow the edifice of his labor 
and his love while there was yet left a single chance to purify it, he 
made one more rally, his final one, and literally saved Garfield from 
the jaws of Democratic devourment in New York. And even while 
he saved him the teeth of those jaws came together with a rasp and 
2:rind that permitted no equilibrium to be restored to Saint Oleag- 
inoii=5 until he reached the mayflower atmosphere of the Western 
Reserve. 

And his reward? Blaine and Garfield formed a conspiracy to 
politically disgrace this chevalier sans peur et sans reproche of a 
Conkling — who would neither lie, cheat, take bribes, groan in the 
amen corner, wrestle with the sisters in prayer, nor write letters to 
De Golyer nor to MuUigan-^and, well, the country knows the bal- 
ance 

History repeats itself, and what Blaine was to Garfield so he is 
to be again to Harrison, should Harrison be elected. No wonder, 
then, that there is a vengeful yet righteous revolt along the entire 
Conkling line. They mean that the blood of their idol, Conkling, 



134 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

shall cboke Harrison, because in choking him they strangle also the 
hated Blaine. 

JAMES N. 13URNES. 

[Kansas City Times, January 24-35, 1889.] 

The sudden and fateful blow which yesterda}^ struck down the 
Hon. James N. Burnes, of the Third Congressional District, in the 
midst of his labors and his usefulness struck also the unprotected 
bosom of Missouri. 

In the high noon of a splendid intellect, still in the full flow 
and vigor of a perfect manhood, proud for his State, ambitious for 
his State, loving his State as though it were a prescient thing with 
whom he could^onfer, and upon whom he could rely for counsel, 
guidance and inspiration, he stood in the hall of the House of Re- 
presentatives as her especial champion, guardian and friend. 

And then to see him fall as he did with all of his war harness 
on — fall in mid career with his work yet scarcely begun, and the 
laurels bound thick about his brows as green as when they were 
gathered in the early morning of his first success, and as his most 
precious victories — ah ! it was pitiful. 

One had to know James N. Burnes long and well to sound to its 
uttermost depths the virile force and power of his many-sided char- 
acter. It was not as a worldly moral or physical development that 
one could know it, as he stood out boldly in the open, fighting the 
battles of life with life's own weapons. Then and there he took such 
blows, full front, as time and situation dealt him, giving back stroke 
for stroke, yielding nothing to force, or blandishment, or seduction; 
but hewing%i path straight forward to the goal, with head erect and 
soul undaunted. These were simply the periods when all the iron 
in his blood went to make his muscles tense, his will adamant, acd 
the courage of his convictions as unswerving as the tides of the sea, 
which ebb and flow, and yet which go on and on forever. 

No. it was not as the gladiator that one should have studied the 
man Burnes — stalwart, indomitable, crushing obstacles, striding 
over difficulties, scaling precipices high enough seemingly to shut 
out tb'^. sunlight from his most cherished hopes, and oliscure as 
with the very blackness of darkness his most ardent aspirations. 
He was then all nerve, energy, unyielding effort, unflagging zeal 
and heroic endeavor. He was then grappling with destiny hand to 
hand and yoking fortune to his chariot wheels to minister unto his 
slisrhtest wants and obey with alacrity his imperious bidding. Of 
course then the brow was corrugated, the light of battle still shone 
in his eyes, the dust of the conflict was still upon his garments, the 
heat of'the strife was still rioting in his blood, and, until the vic- 
tory was won, and from the stricken field he had gatheied the 
spoils that belonged to him by right because of a mighty prowess 
and an almost savage resolution, something like a dark hour 
would seem to be upon this soul. He brooded then, and may have 
been a little bit taciturn and a little bit reserved. 

But afterward when he unbent how gentle, and fascinating, and 
lovable he was. His face would then shine out as though for back- 
ground an aureole was put to make it speaking with humanity, and 
radiant with tenderness and affection. 

As a son he idolized his father and mother. As a husband he 
always bore himself as if he had never gone beyond the l)lissful 
probation of the ardent lover. Asa parent'he made constant com- 
panions of his children, entering into all of their little whims. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 135 

notions and adolescent ambitions, teaching tliem how to be frank 
of speech and generous of heart and nature. As a neighbor the 
latch-string of his door was always out, and none in distress who 
ever knocked there or entered there went away empty-handed. As 
a citizen his enterprise knew no limit, his liberality was without 
bounds, his resources multiplied themselves by the amount of oppo- 
sition he had to encounter, while his faith in the people among 
whom he lived and wrought never wavered a moment. Whatever 
was apportioned for him to do was done as if as assistants he had 
both omnipotence and omniscience. As a public man he pointed to 
a stainless official record, and boasted with pardonable pride of 
duties faithfully and conspicuously done. 

He was yet in the prime of life. In a single congressional ses- 
sion he took immediaterank with the ablest and the most experienced 
of [lis colleagues and associates. Samuel J. Randall put one day his 
hands upon his head to give him as it were an appreciative blessing, 
and when he arose he was a giant. None can say now to what posi- 
tion he might not have aspired, or to what height he might not have 
soared and reached if God had not called him hence for purposes 
unknown to poor finite minds which strive, and yearn, and reach 
out from under the shadow of a great bereavement to take once 
more the hand that was ever open to succor the helpless and ever 
closed to defend a friend. 

. And now he has gone out from the vision of all who knew him 
and loved him so. Yes, he has gone the dark way all alone. No 
comrade at his side; no voices of the olden time to make music for him; 
no paths that were once so familiar to him to walk therein; no trees 
that he once planted, and watered, and pruned to uprear themselves 
by the roadside to make him shade; no tender words to greet him 
as used to greet him in the old days when returning to his home; no 
sweet good-byes to bid him God speed as of old at the parting. 
The great unknown is over, and around, and about him. 

Is it light there, and can he see far away to his front and yet 
within encompassment the Great White Throne, and the jasper gates 
and the golden streets of the New Jerusalem? 

Surely, surely, if anybody can he can; if anybody ever did so see 
he has already seen, for did he not die like a soldier on duty? Ah I 
yes, he 

"Died with his harness on— the broad-SAvord leaping— 

The wild fight surging fast, 
Love Avounded, wiih each stroke, yet keeping. 

His stout front to the last ! 
When others faint of heart, sank down despairing, 

He cheered the battle on. 
To his last life-drop still that gay smile wearing. 

As if the day was won. 
And was it not? Does truest, noblest glory. 

In shallow triumph lie ? 
They longest, brightest live, in song and story, 

Who die as martyrs die." 

IN HIS PUBLIC CAPACITY. 

We have already made the declaration that the character of the 
Hon. James N. Burnes had many sides, while to be thoroughly 
understood and appreciated it would have to be summed up from 
several standpoints — family, social, business, public and political. 
Having already discussed him as son, husband, father, neighbor, 
citizen and friend, it may not be amiss or inopportune now to look 
into his public and political life. 



136 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

He entered his career in Missouri at the very foot of the ladder. 
In one sense fortune had been good to him, for it had given him 
splendid physique, rugged development, great intellectual power, 
untiring energy and indomitable will. To prove this, just see how 
— leaning upon the arm of his associate, Butterworth, the hand of 
death even then tearing remorselessly at his heart-strings — he 
walked erect as a grenadier on guard to his committee room and 
laid him down, the same sweet smile on his placid face, and the 
same kind light in his frank, clear eyes, which even then, perhaps, 
were gazing upon another morn than ours. 

While always taking an eager local interest in politics — giving 
freely of his time and money to the organization and advancement 
of the Democratic party — he asked nothing for himself, nor sought 
for himself any place of political profit or preferment. He was then 
well content to lay the foundations broad and deep for that career of 
the future which was to be so brietly brilliant and sqlamentably short. 

In public life Missouri has sent to the frontsome veritable giants. 
Their names belong to history, and their actions are the precious 
heirlooms and idols of the commonwealth. But this State, however, 
no matter the past, had never one to stand for her in the halls of 
Congress who was wiser in council, bolder in action, loftier in 
bearing, kinder in intercourse, less amenable to demagogy, less pli- 
ant to sinister surroundings, less affected by the clamorings of the 
rabble, less easy to be swerved from the demands of duty, less im- 
pervious to the flatteries and the seductions of the designing — and 
surely not one who more rigidly lived up to the maxim that personal 
and political honor were synonymous terms, and that he who 
strained or forswore the one strained and forswore the other. 

When Colonel Burues went first to Washington as one of Mis- 
souri's representatives he was new to Congress and to the ways and 
surroundings of congressional life. Of course he understood thor- 
oughly the nature and extent of the resources which he possessed, 
but how many others did? He saw the future stretching away 
before him as some new, fetrange land, and a fiirure therein casting 
something about him, now on this side and now on that, which 
might have been a horoscope. Could that future be seized, utilized, 
possessed, encompassed? 

He would try. 

At a single step he took rank with the vanguard. Placed next 
to Mr. Chairman Randall on the most important committee in the 
House, that of appropriations, he soon graduated as a leader of 
men . Gi f ted with that rarest of all gifts, the gift of getting acquainted , 
and with that other twin brother gift, the gift of never forgetting a 
face or a person, he soon knew every meijiber of the House, and 
equally as soon was on terms with all of the heartiest and kindliest in- 
tercourse. His motto as a Congressman was: " In business no pol- 
itics; in politics stand by the party to a funeral." 

How he did grow from the very start! One had to know him, 
be with him, be close to him, be where one could see him daily in 
the House to know what manner of a gladiator he was. When the 
French spoliation claims bill — likely to take anywhere from thirty 
to eighty millions of money out of the treasury — was up for passage 
ColonerBurnes scored his greatest and proudest triumph. It was 
the day of the combat. He came to participate in U, faultlessly 
attired. A little white tuberose bud was pinned to his immaculate 
coat. Any one man among the spectators in the gallery might have 
whispered to another: "What! has Spartacus renewed his youtli 
9,nd changed his nationality?" 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 137 

Tlie battle began. Colonel Burnes led the figbt against the 
measure. His attitude was superb — his knowledge of details wonder- 
ful. Every effort known to the ingenuity of legislation was massed 
as a catapult to crush him at a blow. Question after question poured 
in upon him as so many javelin points to pierce the armor of his 
perfect imperturbability. He stood erect as Ajax with the lightning 
flashes of the opposition flashing all about him". To every speech he 
listened deferentiallj^ as though in her boudoir he was listening to 
the low, soft words of some beautiful woman. All over his face 
was that peculiar smile of his, a little bit quizzical, a little bit satir- 
ical, a little bit eager and questioning; but alw^ays winning and 
attractive as though it had just been glorified by the burst of some 
sudden sunshine. 

Assailant after assailant leaped to cross steel with him at close 
quarters. He simply shortened his sword arm as he sainted, and 
murmured "Habet!" " Habet ! " — take it, take it — and another 
one lay dead on the dripping sands of the arena. 

Every joint in his harness was lance proof. The color in his 
cheeks scarcely deepened. His explanations were luminous; his 
answers, not longer than a hand, w^ere vivid as the flashes > f flame 
in the night. The ablest debaters in the House formed phalanx and 
moved to his overthrow. For this one he had a rapid saber-cut of 
speech; for this one a delicate w^ord of badinage, which went home 
like a knife thrust; for this one some rolicking piece of railery, 
which overwhelmed him with the laughter of his colleagues; for this 
one a massive array of unanswerable facts; for this one a logic so 
cold as almost to freeze, and so much of the iron sort as to beat down 
all opposition; and for this one some courteous reply, high bred anc' 
facile, which made the seeker after the light see it almost ere the 
lamps were lit to hasten the revealment. 

Then it wasthat Randall leant over toward old man Kelley and 
whispered : ' * How superb he is. " 

How superb, indeed ! The memorable triumph of that day is 
still a wonder, a memory, a tradition, a delight among all the quid 
nuncs, the old stagers, the old critics and the old philosophers at 
the national capital. 

And now what? A great light has gone out from the political 
firmament of Missouri; a great Democratic leader has gone to his 
rest with the blade Excalibor broken in his hand, and his bloodied 
banner across his dauntless bosom. It is so pitiful, so sorrowful 
so. The days to come promise much of evil deeds and treacherous 
devil's work. Where then shall those turn who worship the very 
name of Democracy to find the fleetest foot on the corrie, the sagest 
council in cumber. Findthem ! When Edward, the Black Prince, 
was told that the lance-head of a Breton squire had found the life's 
blood of John Chandos in an insignificant skirmish at Lussac bridge, 
he piteously exclaimed: "God help us, then; we have lost every- 
thing on the nither side of the seas ! " 

DEATH OF THE PEINCE IMPERIAL. 

[From the Sedalia Democrat, June, 1879.] 

At last the full particulars of the death of the young Bonaparte 
have been published to the world. Sir Evelyn Wood the English 
general who accompanied the ex-Empress Eugenia on her mournful 
journey to the place in Africa where her son was killed has made 
his report to the British Government, It was quite brief, yet it con- 



138 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

tained a story of quiet heroism that will be as deathless as immor- 
tality itself is deaiiiless. 

He stood at bay like a lion, says the report, and died fighting 
like a hero. On his'body were seven wounds, his sword was broken 
and his revolver was empty. ]Slow, all this is very little; it is also a 
great deal. Almost any sort of a war produces such heroes; the sort 
of a war England wages with barbarians quite a number. When a 
soldier comes face to face with his destiny he most generally dies, 
fighting hard like a wolf, set upon or encompassed. Any history of 
the Civil War in America is rich with such annals, and lurid also. 
It is something to die, no matter under what flag, or for what cause, 
or king, or creed, or country. It is perhaps, easier to die when one 
is imnoted, isolated, having no tongue behind to cry out over fate, 
nor any heart to make a moan. 

But this was a Prince, who died from assegai wounds in Africa. 
Princes do not often so. Princes who are heirs to Austerlitz and 
Waterloo never but once in the world's life. He was but a boy. 
His mother had raised him — that is to say he had been made pious, 
timid, modest like a girl, and sensitive like a nun at an altar. One 
moment as he stood on the perilous edge of the fight it might have 
appeared as if Hoche had come back from La Vendee, or Dessoix 
from Marengo. In his death he vindicated his dynasty. He died 
not as Bonapartes have done, but as Bonapartes should have done. 
Before that body in its tropical battlefield the French republic has 
no need to keep itself uncovered. He stood for the saber, it is true, 
but the saber has ever been the standard of France. Gambetta 
preaches peace, but it is the peace of Samson ere the thick locks 
have grown long again, and tlie soft undoing wrought by Delilah 
has hardened into war lust. France will surely feel more of rever- 
ence for the Bonapartes when the tale is told of how this last one 
died in a stronger army, true to his name, true to the fame of the 
nation which had cast liim out, and true to those mighty hopes 
wliich must have flitted before him dfirkly — those that one day 
would make him the ruler of an empire like his father's. 

Ridicule is a merciless weapon with the French. It has dealt 
savagely with many high, holy, and august things. Its most exquis- 
ite torture is to be found in the newspapers. These never failed to 
show sticking out from under the long scarlet robe of the phantom 
which they called Louis Napoleon, the great muddj'- boots of the 
coup d' etat. These newspapers were also bnsy with this boy. He 
w^as simply like an old i)iece of parlor furniture belonging to the 
Empire. He was not in use any longer. He was obsolete — an 
anachronism. 

But death sanctifies. Tender things will be said of this boy 
now in France, and much recalled of his heroic death, if the time 
ever shall come when any Bonaparte attempts to play over again the 
role of his ancestors. 

BAZAINE. 

[Kansas City Times, April 20, 1887.1 

The attempt to assassinate Marshal Bazaine, once a prominent 
figure in French history, was a most causeless and cowardly 
attempt. The usual ccmimentary eoes with the announcement of 
the crime — the would-be assassin is believed to be insane. 

Of course. Never a murderous devil yet failed to have put up 
for him some sort of a plea of this kind whenever he did a deed that 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 139 

was particularly noticeable for its horrible details and its atrocious 
cruelty. Whoever is the least bit theatrical in the gratification of 
his blood-mania is crazy as a matter of course. The same villain 
must only be permitted to stab, shoot or poison in a calm, deliberate, 
methodical manner. If he does not speak, very well. If he does 
not change color in presence of the rigid corpse of his victim, still 
very well. If no look, or word, or action tells that somewhere 
about the murderer there is a soul, it is just splendid. There 
is no insanity about that man. He shall be hung because 
his equanimity is so superb and yet so diabolical. But if ever 
a murderer is known to mutter in his sleep, be seen much 
alone, be heard to make dire threats, act strangely upon public 
occasions, rave over little things, establish a reputation as a crank, 
or parade the streets with a^ brass band— why, he is insane, of 
course, and must not be punished though he slay a hecatomb. ^ 

Marshal Bazaine commanded at Metz during the Franco-Prussian 
War, and after the battle of Gravelotte, wherein all the advantages 
of the tight were all on his side, he surrendered this almost impreg- 
nable fortress, and with it an army of nearly 300,000 men. Such a 
surrender, when the number of soldiers surrendered is taken into 
consideration, never occurred before in history. It really seems 
impossible that such a surrender could have taken place without a 
desperate effort to break through, but it did take place, and when 
the war ended Bazaine was tried for treason, found guilty, sentenced 
to be shot, had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life in 
the Chateau d'lf by President Thiers, escaped from there one stormy 
night in au open boat at sea, and has since been a poor, isolated, 
proscribed political exile in Spain. And now the man who has just 
attempted to kill him, if, indeed, he has not succeeded, is already 
being hedged about from the garrote by being declared crazy. ^ 

Was Bazaine guilty of treason at Metz? Contemporaneous his- 
tory is of the opinion that he was not. The French character is 
such that at every period of national disaster it furiously demands a 
scape-goat or a victim. This desperate lot fell upon Bazaine. At 
his trial he proved conclusively that the fortress he was ordered to 
defend was almost absolutely barren of provisions; that the heavy 
guns upon the fortifications were comparatively without ammuni- 
tion; that his musket cartridges had been reduced to sixty rounds to 
the man; that he was encompassed about by 500,000 Germans; that 
his artillery was practically useless because of a scarcity of horses 
and grape and canister shot, and because he had positive orders from 
his master, the Emperor Napoleon, to make the bestterms he could, 
but under no circumstances to compromise his army by a bloody 
but indecisive battle. Napoleon's object was plain. He never 
believed that the Germans would dethrone him, and he wanted 
B izaine's army to re-establish himself upon the throne of France 
after he had made a definite treaty of peace with the German con- 

^^ Bazaine was also with Maximilian in Mexico, and gave evidence 
there of much soldierly skill and rare adminstrative capacity. He 
had driven Juarez into Texas, held the more populous states under 
a complete system of military subjugation, garrisoned with picked 
troops the more important cities, and was just getting ready to 
consolidate the power thus obtained, and to issue a general amnesty, 
both civil and military, when the civil war in the United States 
came to an end. That also brought to an end the French occupa- 
tion. With over a million of men in arms, the United States Govern- 
ment turned instantly to an emphatic reassertion of the Monroe 



140 JOHN NEW^IAN EDWARDS. 

doctrine, and ordered Louis Kapoleon to get out of Mexico as soon 
as po.-sible. He got out, and rapidly. 

Bazaine lias been held responsible for the death of Maximilian, 
and a, niullitude of penny-a-liners have gone into elaborate details 
tosiiow how he badgered, outraged, and finally betrayed to his 
unaomg the hapless Austrian. 

No t)aser lies were ever told to blacken the name and the fame of 
a spleudid soldier. Marshal Bazaiue strove the best he knew to induce 
Maximilian to abaDdon Mexico. Hepointedout to him the impossi 
biiityof maintainiflg his position in a country that was against him 
e7i vuifise, and argued from a purely military standpoint that it would 
require an army of occupation of at least 300,000 soldiers to keep him 
on Jiis throne, and he did not have 10,000 reliable troops. Maximilian 
refused to he guided by the marshal, and in so refusing hejost his life. 

From a simple captain of a company in an infantry' regiment of 
the line, Bazaine fought his way up to be a Marshal of France. But 
for ]\Ieiz be would to-day have been an honored man in his own 
coniiiry, loved, respected and surrounded by every comfort in his 
old age. As it is, he may be dying from the blow of an assassin, 
poor, friendless an exile, and a so-called traitor. What a strange 
thing is fate. 

THE NEY MYTH. 

[Kansas City Times, May 15, 1887.] 

This is a country where quite a number of men will not stay 
dead after they are dead. One can find scores of people who con- 
scientiously believe that "Wilkes Booth is still alive ; nay more, who 
liavu educated themselves to the belief that they have seen him. It 
has not been so very long ago that quite along and interesting story 
went the rounds of the newspapers to the effect that he was in com- 
mand of a merchant vessel in the China seas, so changed by a life 
of exposure, toil, and hiding, as to be almost impossible of recogni- 
tion even by his mostintimate friends. 

It would be difficult to enumerate the number of times that 
Quantrell has been seen and conversed with since he was killed in 
Kentucky. 

But ihe other day Brigham Young was encountered in the 
mountains of Utah, in strict incognito, and waiting and watching 
against an hour in the near future when lie should again take into 
his liands the management of the Mormon State, and shield and save 
his chosen people from destruction. 

Once, according to well accepted romance or story, we had an 
unmistakable Bourbon prince among us, the Rev. Eleazer Williams, 
who was none other than the unfortunate son of Louis XVI. and his 
murdered queen, Marie Antoinette, 

Now comes the rehabilitation of another myth, and the 
reclothing of it with flesh, blood,alocalhabitation,and a name. The 
local habitation is the little town of Piedmont, N. C, and the name 
none other than that of IMichael Ney, Marshal of France, Duke of 
Elchingen, Prince of Moskwa, and that beloved comrade of the 
mightyBonaparte, who, when even surrounded by half a million of 
heroes, called him alone the bravest of the brave. 

The story, briefly summed up, is about this: Marshal Ney was 
not shot on December 7, 1815, as all history declares. Favored by 
his old comrades, who were detailed to seethe execution carried out, 
a condemned criminal was put in his place, the forms of the killing 
were duly gone through with, the real Key escaped to the United 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 141 

States, tauglit school iu North Carolina under the name of Peter S. 
Ney, lived there until about 1837 as schoolteacher, and finally died 
as a worn and broken old man in either 1838 or 1839. 

These are the most essential points. To make P. S. Ney, the 
schoolmaster, become the real Michael Ney, Marshal of France, 
declared to have been stood up against a dead wall and shot about 
daylight of a raw, cold morning in December, 1815, muchingenious 
filling in is resorted to, and much plausible fabrication. 

Unless history is a lie, this story, as now being so extensively 
told, has been too carefully arranged, overworked, and overdone. 
The North Carolina Ney was a man of fine education and knew law. 
Marshal Ney had scarcely any education at all, and perhaps in Lis 
whole life had never looked into a law book. The North Carolina 
Ney was very fond of strong drink, and upon many described occa- 
sions got uproariously drunk. Marshal Ney was noted for his 
abstemious habits, and especially for his dislike of the various forms 
of alcohol. Indeed, it waste this fact alone tha the himself attrib- 
uted his wonderful endurance throughout all the horrors of the 
Russian retreat, an endurance which Napoleon noted when ho gave 
into his hands the keeping of the rear guard and the preservation of 
all that was finally preserved of the Grand Army. 

The North Carolica Ney was always on guard lest his identity 
should be suspected. He would never speak of himself, never say 
whether he had been a soldier or not, never discuss Bonaparte 
except as a thousand of his enthusiastic pupils might have done, 
never wrote or received letters from France, and once, when 
addressed by a wandering Frenchman as "Marshal Ney," gave the 
poor unfortunate such a terrible look that he soon sneaked away 
from his presence and fled the neighborhood in mortal fear lest he 
be slaughtered. 

Now, what, under such circumstances, might not the real Mar- 
shal Ney have done, admitting always for the sake of argument the 
proposition that he had escaped, through the connivance of his 
friends, the cowardly vengeance of the Bourbons. The very first 
momenthelandedupon American soil he was as free as the wind. 
No living mortal would have dared to lay hands upon him for any 
political crime much less for the alleged crime of devotion to his t m- 
peror and to his beloved France. He had left behind him a wife 
whom he idolized, and children who were the joy of his life. Wliy 
should he not have written to them, had them to have joined him, 
found for them a happy home in a country where his last days 
might have been spent in tranquil peace and rest? 

Had this course not been to him the most preferable one, what 
was to have prevented his own return to France after the expiration 
of a few years of exile? An amnesty had been granted by Louis 
XVni., by Charles X., and by Louis Philippe. In the reign of 
either he might have gone back home with perfect safety, and he 
lived through the reign of two of these, and through many years of 
the reign of the other. 

As to the question, however, of the real Ney's death at the 
hands of the Bourbons, perhaps that has never been doubted by any 
one except these North Carolina quid mines and sensation concoct- 
ers. Napoleon tells at St. Helena, both to Las Casas and O'Meara, 
all about Ney's death. Montholon, in his memoirs, does the same. 
Bourrienne is exceedingly full upon the subject. A strong effort 
was made to save him, but Fouche, that horrible butcher of the reign 
of terror — that spy, thief, traitor, coward, servile slave, and cringing 
suppliant at the feet of power — swore that Ney should be killed as a 



142 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

sort of sacrifice to appease the fury of the allies. Key was chosen 
as the victim because he had fought them oftener, more desperately, 
with more ferocious success, had put more of them to rout, killed 
more of them, was more indomitable and created wilder and fiercer 
havoc in their ranks than any otlier subordinate who served under 
Napoleon. Hence they hated him with th» hatred of kings for the 
very qualities wiiich had served to make him famous and glorious. 
The Bourbons demanded his death because of his heroic efforts to 
save the day at Waterloo, which, if saved, would have precipitated 
them into another flight into England, 

Wellington was also besought to save Ney, but Wellington 
never saved anybody. A more supremely cold, greedy, selfish man 
never figured in the pages of history. The army which saved him 
and gloritiedhimat Waterloo he called "a beastly army," and so 
grudgingly did he bestow praise upon those who served under him 
that one could scarcely ever tell from his dispatches and bulletins 
from the battle field whether he ever had such a thing as a private, 
a corporal, a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, a major, a colonel, or 
a general of any grade under him. As he was among his soldiers, 
so, also, was he in public, in private, and in the midst of his family. 

However, all this is a digression. Bourrienne refers especially 
to the North Carolina myth and dwells, because of it, especially 
upon the actions of Ney after the restoration of the Bourbons. He 
tells how Ney, believing that he was protected by the terms of the 
general surrender, made no effort to escape, whichmight have been 
easily accomplished. Plow, when orderedfor trial before a military 
court, he pleaded his privilege as a peer of France and demanded 
to have a jury of hispeers. In doing this, said Napoleon, he signed 
his own death warrant. His old comrades in arms would have 
acquitted him, Bourrienne finally goes into minute particulars of 
the execution, giving the name of the commander of the firing 
party, a fanatical Bourbon emigrant, describes the scene, the death 
moments, the grave, and the fury of the old soldiers afterward. 

No, the Ney of North Carolina was either a hoax or an impos- 
ter. 

DON CARLOS AND MEXICO. 

[Kansas City Times, May 22, 1887,] 

Nothing could possibly be more absurd than the story that Don 
Carlos, of Spain, is coming to Mexico to create an empire and erect 
a throne. If he comes to Mexico at all, which is a matter of very 
much doubt, he would come simply as any other Spanish gentleman, 
and as such would bear himself what time he remained in the 
country. 

As for making an empire out of Mexico, that is the silliest non- 
sense ever born in the brain of a crank. France tried it when the 
United States was struggling in the toils of a furious Civil War. 
First and last no less than forty thousand veteran French soldiers 
were operating in Mexico at one time, to say nothing of the native 
forces enlisted in the cause of Maximilian, and yet the very best 
that they could do was to hold the towns while the Juaristas held 
the country. All they ever owned, or occupied, or controlled, or 
felt safe in, was that extent of territory and no more which their 
cannon covered. When, finally, the French were recalled, the 
Juaristas closed in behind them, generally a day's march behind 
and saw them safe out of the so-called empire. Thenthey turned 
about, toppled over poor Maximilian, and shot him with about as 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 143 

many compunctions of conscience as they would have shot a prairie 
wolf. The farce ended with a tragedy. 

It is difficult to see who or what is at the bottom of this Don 
Carlos business. To one who has lived in Mexico and understands 
something of the Mexican situation the story is too absurd even for 
an audience of cranks. They say he is to come as a special repre- 
sentative of the Church party. ^ hat Church party? Mexico is a 
Catholic country. There is no other religion there exceptthe Cath- 
olic religion. Here and there in a few of the larger cities a Protest- 
ant mission or two may live from hand to mouth, and feebly, but 
the great mass of the nation is as Catholic as Spain or Austria. Then 
what is the use of talking about this idiotic myth of a Church 
party ? 

The concocters of the Don Carlos story also make him out a 
Spaniard, who is to have an especial backing at the hands of the 
Spanish colony in the City of Mexico. This colony is to take him in 
chsiTge.fete him, chaperone him, make a social lion out of him, put 
him en rapport with the blue bloods, enlist aristocracy on bis side, 
array bank accounts under his standard, provide the ways and 
means of revolution, revolutionize. 

The Spanish colony! Lord bless us every one, if revolutions in 
Mexico were done up in bunches like asparagus, the Spanish colony 
could not even get to see the ground from which had been cut a 
.single asparagus stalk, much less to encompass an entire bundle. 
The Spanish colony is composed of an exceedingly stiff and formal 
lot of senors and senores, with some beautiful senoritas sandwiched 
between, young plants of grace in every respect, and fair to look 
upon as the blush rose or the lily. The wine is good, the discourse 
grave, the minuets stately; but when you say revolution you say 
aloesto the honeycomb and ice to the Burgundy. Thereafter, the 
Spanish colony might help to make Don Carlos fit for an avto defe, 
but never for a foray that had vigor enough in it for another Quere- 
taro. The Spanish colony was formed for other purposes. The 
nearest approach it will ever make to bloodshed will be a bull fight, 
and the nearest approach to an uprising the crush at a theater when 
some bright, particular star sings who is a Spanish favorite. 

Another thing: Nobody has got any business fooling about 
Mexico under the impression that thrones grow on trees down there. 
It has learned many a stark, stubborn and stalwart lesson lately. 
Its own revolutions have been remorsely drowned out in blood. Its 
own revolutionists have been stood up against a dead wall and shot 
in droves to cure them of the old robber fever, of the old robber 
pronunciamievto days. It is as matter-of-fact as an oak tree, and as 
logical as a column of figures. It means to be a nation among 
nations — not the by-word and reproach of all who set any store by 
stability, and believe that self-respect must first begin at home 
before national respect can be inculcated and insisted upon abroad. 

Don Carlos may go to Mexico and have a most delightful visit, 
but if he proposes topotter much about dynamite he had infinitely 
better stay where he is. 

POOR TRANCE. 

[Kansas City Times, June 2, 1887.] 

At last the re(L Republicans and the opportunists have done 
their work, and to the revolt there has succeeded a revolution. 
General Boulanger has been overthrown. 

If this were all, if this were simply the pulling down of one 



144 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

man and the putting up of another, if this were only the rising or the 
falling of the political mercury in that most mercurial of all barom- 
eters, Paris, if tbis merely meant that the king is dead or that the 
king lives, if behind the face of the ever piquant and attractive 
farce there was not anothor face — eager, hungry and splashed 
somewhat with blood — why, what difference would it make who 
strutted his brief hour upon the stage, or whether the dances were 
such as the grisette might enjoy at her last sou, equally with the 
grand dame at her last lover? 

But it was not the French citizen Boulanger, who was thus 
put upon, nor the French General Boulanger, nor the Secretary of 
War Boulanger, but it was Boulanger the idea, the prescience, the 
terrible embodiment of a maimed and mutilated nation's half-stifled 
cry for vengeance. 

In the presence of those two cruel and yet bleeding wounds, 
Sedan and Gravelotte, it does seem that even a congress of Jacobins 
or dynamiters might have had some pity for France. That instead 
of the can-can in sight of these wounds the entire representative 
body should have arisen, uncovered and saluted. That instead of a 
whole forest full of chattering monkeys, there should have come 
out at least from some one single jungle a roar that told of a lion 
crouching. That instead of whole parliamentary rights wasted in 
shriek and grimace, and shrug and epilepsy, something should have 
been heard somewhere of the sounding of trumpets and the whist- 
ling of sword-blades. That instead of there being only heard in all 
the darkness the gutteral croakings and chokings of carrion birds, 
the putrid offal thick in their distended throats, there might have 
been heard the screams and the gatherings of the symbolic eagles, 
scenting from their eyries the blue grapes which grew by the Rhine, 
even as in the old days and from the towering Alps they scented the 
oil and the wine of another Paradise named Italy. Boulanger stood 
for the army — ^that poor army which has been so cheated, juggled 
with, preyed upon by jobber, ruinously led and stupidly fought 
since Solferino. At Spicheren the ball-cartridges were a size too 
large for the bore of the chassepots. At Metz it had neither shell 
nor caunistershot. Two days before Gravelotte its meat ration had 
failed. At Sedan it was shoeless, tunicless and well-nigh out of 
ammunition. In front of Paris, and yet in the heart of one of the 
richest and most fertile nations on earth, it went hungry for even 
bread. In the end it had to take from the bloody hands of its own 
ferocious and ravening wolves of countrymen what was left of 
desolate, blackened, mutilated Paris. 

Boulanger took this army; bound up its wounds; recalled its 
history; made its standards once more adorable; gave it the esjorit 
de corps it had not known since it had transfigured Europe at the 
double quickstep; dealt with it as some perfect machine which had 
a soul; taught it that patriotism was the holiest word ever created 
by God upon the lips of man; gave it the splendid resources which 
■come from ample numbers, organization, enthusiasm, discipline, 
ambition, a battle cry that had vengeance in it, and then, as one 
huge, compact, colossal mass, he held it, waiting and obedient, for 
another march to the Rhine. 

This, we say, is what Boulanger had done for the army, and 
because he had he was slaughtered by communists and dynamiters, 
joined to a lot of demagogues and politicians that have for fifteen 
years made France the wonder, the pity, and the scorn of Europe. 

To get a good look at the crime and the cowardice of such an 
act, take down simply the map of Prussia after Jena Auerstadt and 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 145 

Friedland. As a kingdom it was almost literally wiped out. The 
omnipotent liand of Napoleon, clothed with the thunderbolts, had 
suddenly been thrust forward through the gloom and the torment 
of battle, and with a sponge soaked in blood had obliterated the fig- 
ures which stood for Prussia from the blackboard of continental 
Europe. The King had no capital. The beautiful Queen — beautiful 
as some celestial portrait cut from a picture-book the angels paint 
and keep in heaven — was dying of a broken heart. Prussia itself, 
and in every extremity, was stricken with a paralysispitiful to even 
its French despoilers. 

Two men came as the Lord's annointed, two men — Stein and 
Scharnhorst. They pieced here and they patched there. They 
darned this hole and they basted that one. It was Prussia always. 
Men. they whispered, for they did not dare to cry aloud, everything 
for Prussia. If you die, yes, many of you will, but you die for 
Prussia. You give up your silver, your jewelry, your fruits your 
fields, your homes, your live stock, your household goods — yes, yes, 
we know all this very well, but it is for Prussia. Your boy children 
never come back to you; no, but they went away for Prussia. You 
go hungry often, and your uniform is a mass of rags, and the blood 
from your naked feet has splotched the snow, but if only your car- 
tridge-boxes are full for Prussia what matter the haversacks that are 
^mpty. Here's old Blucher. Here's old Marshal Vorwarts, who for 
tvventy years was always drunk; who for twenty years was always 
in the saddle; who, when he wished to sleep well, took off one spur, 
and who, when he wished to sleep luxuriously, took off both. 

And the result? Blucher got to Waterloo; Grouchy never got 
there at all. 

But to reach Boulanger's case and see it in all of its concentrated 
idiocy and want of patriotism. It is only necessary to imagine 
Stein and Scharnhorst deposed by the very nation it was about to 
save, and to restore again, unmutilated and greater in power and 
territory than ever, to its old imperial rank among the monarchies 
of Europe. In France the demagogues and politicians, joined to 
the red caps and dynamite, would have torn those two army creat- 
ors to pieces even before they had given a soul to the army which 
they had summoned from chaos to encounter one who might well 
have been looked upon as more than mortal. 

Is it any wonder that France, in its last war with Germany, 
never won even a skirmish from Weissomburg to Paris ? Is it any 
wonder, then, that it has never had among its commanders such a 
soldier as Von Moltke, nor among its politicians such a statesman 
as Bismarck ? Von Moltke in Paris would have been exiled at 
thirty. Under that hydra-headed thing called the French Republic 
Bismarck would have either gone mad or died before his first 
protocol, with all that mighty intellect of his buried with him, as 
absolutely unknown to the world as the grave of Moses. 

So France appears to Europe, and so she will always appear as 
long as Paris is Babylon, qualified by steam, electricity and daily 
newspapers There is no more iron in the blood of Paris. What the 
newspapers have spared in the way of reverence, religion and old- 
fashioned truth, manhood and virtue, the faubourgs have finished. 
Ferry is a fearful old mugwump, decayed at the top. It is doubtful 
if Grevy ever heard of Austerlitz, and DeFreycenet is a second Jim 
Blaine, without half Blaine's ability. 

The monkey part of the French character is in the saddle. 



146 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 



EDMUND O'DONOYAN. 



[Kansas City Times, June 3, 1887.] 

This is the name of an Irish journalist who made himself 
famous. A little thin shred of a life of him has just been published 
in England, not greater than seventy or eighty pages, perhaps, 
"when it might well have gone to five hundred. 

His father was a learned professor in the University of Dublin. 
Devoted to his work there, he permitted his eldest born, Edmund, 
to do pretty much as he pleased, and he pleased to become a surgeon. 
After a little practice in this line, it further pleased him to become 
a botanist and a geologist. Then he traveled. Then he began a 
life of adventure which, in many ways, was one of the most adven- 
turous lives that ever had an abiding place in the realms of either 
truth, romance, or fiction. 

Irishman born, bred and educated, he w^as one among the very 
first to espouse the Fenian cause, and give to it youth, energy, dar- 
ing, enthusiasm and devotion. He mastered the military tactics 
of the text-books that he might become a drill sergeant. He was 
rarely gifted by Nature to be both orator and agitator, and he was 
both at a gallop. He enlisted recruits, organized them, drilled them 
when he could, in some barn, or some lonely hillside, in some 
isolated glen. When the drilling was done, the exhortations would 
begin, and these went home to the hearts of his young Irishmen 
ready to follow their young drill master to war or the scaffold. 

James Stevens, the great head, front, and leader of the Fenian 
movement, was his life-long guide, counselor and friend. One day 
the British authorities laid hold upon Stevens and made him fast in 
the dungeon of a Dublin prison. They could not or did not keep 
him, for he soon broke out and fled to France. O'Donovan quickly 
followed after, joining him in Paris. Then with tongue, pen and 
purse he wrought splendidly for his chief, and for the cause of Ire- 
land so dear to his heart. 

The Franco-Prussian War came on, and gave him the oppor- 
tunity so long beseeched for, the opportunity to make his first essay 
in arms. He joined a French regiment of the line as a private sol- 
dier, fought as became his race, was named a captain on the field of . 
battle for heroic deeds, was shot down, captured, locked up in a 
German fortress, ef-caped through sheer pity if not a tenderer senti- 
ment of the gaoler's daughter, and got safely home once more to 
Ireland. 

The Carlists were next to break loose among the hills of Spain, 
and thither rushed O'Donovan as a correspondent for tbe London 
Hews. Somewhat of a guerrilla, much of a journalist and a passa- 
ble artist, he fought, wrote and sketched until his reputation became 
European. Meanwhile he had learned to speak French, Spanish and 
German. Afterward he added to these Turkish, Russian and Arabic 
and two or three dialects for especial use among the Tekkes and Turco- 
mans of Tartary. Admirable polyglot, was there ever known in 
all newspaper history before or since a journalist so thoroughly 
equipped for war by land or sea among the Arabs or the Cossacks, 
by the blue Bosphorus, or where, (^^od willing, old Mazeppas steeds 
to-morrow 

*'Shall praze at ease 
Beyond the swilt Borystlienes?" 

One day, while still fighting, and writing, and penciling among 



MISCELLANEOUS WPtlTINGS. 147 

the guerrillas of Don Carlos — the same Don Carlos, by the way, 
whose name of late has been so absurdly mixed up with some certain 
intrigues or conspiracies in Mexico — a dream, a vision, an inspira- 
tion came to him as he lay by a bivouac fire, the night wind keen 
like a knife and the canteen empty. 

He would see what the Russians were doing in Central Asia; 
that is to say, he would go into the jaws of a lion, and, more proba- 
bly into the jaws of death. Russia was gathering herself together 
there for a mighty spring upon Merv and the Hindoo Kush Mount- 
ains, the gates to Herat. This spring was afterward made just as 
O'Donovan said it would be, and how he said it would be, and when 
he said it would be. England then remembered the warning words 
of this prophetic Irishman, j^oung as he was, and Fenian though he 
was, as looking westward from the walls of Candahar she could see 
the lances of the Cossacks, clear cut and uplitted, wrathful against 
the lurid sunset. 

Every attempt made by an Englishman to get into the Russian 
possessions of Central Asia had theretofore failed. Most of the 
attempts were stopped at tlie frontier- If the frontier was barely got 
over by some one bolder than another, a cloud of cavalry instantly 
enveloped him, and he was given his choice to quit the country for- 
ever or die by the rope. It is not recorded that any of the adven- 
turers came to an end so ignominious. All the Oases in and around 
Merv was an unknown land to England. All that was known by 
anybody about it was the knowledge that it was inhabited by Russian 
specters. They flitted hither and thither through the gloom, but 
what w^ere they doing ? O'Donovan took it upon himself to find out. 
He laid his plans f ulTy before the London News; explained them in 
every detail and ramification. He was endorsed and they were 
endorsed, and he started. 

'Twere long to tell of that wonderful adventure. Of the foes 
that he baffled, the streams that he swam, the disguises that he 
assumed, the ambushmentsthat he escaped, the robbers that he out- 
witted, the Cossacks that he outrode, the chiefs that he bribed, the 
coolness that never weakened and the smiling audacity •v^hich 
abode to the end. He, won, however, in the desperate race, and his 
book, "The New Oasis," was the result. It was printed by five 
nations, one among them being even Russia herself, and well all of 
them may have done so, for it contained more accurate and valuable 
information upon the Asiatic positions of Russia and Great Britain 
than has ever yet been put in print before or since the famous gal- 
lop. The pitcher, however, was about to go for the last time to the 
well. The night was beginning to fall and the darkness to gather. 
One of the purest and most dauntless spirits journalism ever gave to 
the newspaper world to ennoble it and crowd it thicker still with yet 
more unselfish and heroic deeds was about to take its flight forever. 

The Soudan was all aflame. The Arab had turned savagely 
upon the Egyptian, and there was war between civilizations as old 
as Abraham. Of course O'Donovan could never stay his hand 
when all that was hoary and majestic in the history of the race 
might look down upon his marchings and his bivouacs, his battles 
by day and his reveries by night. 

He almost flew to Cairo, and was hot and eager with impatience 
until he joined the army of Hicks Pasha on its last march to exter- 
mination. Not a man of it, something over eleven thousand, ever 
survived to tell the tale of the monstrous slaughter. Edmund 
O'Donovan perished with the rest. He had a presentiment that he 
should never survive the campaign, but in spite of it, if not because 



148 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

of it, he appeared to be all the more determined to see if fate had 
real]}' and tinally forsaken him. Surely this English life of him 
will soon he republished in America. 

THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 

[Kansas City Times, June 13, 1887.] 

We refer to the Revised Version of the New Testament. It can 
not be made to supersede the old King James translation. It came 
with a great flourish of religious trumpets. For ten years it was 
in the hands of scholars said to be in every way exalted. When the 
work was done, the cry went up from orthodox lips that it marked a 
wonderful epoch in religious history. It was to fasten the attention 
of the world upon it, and thereby bring about such an upheaval as 
had never been known In all the long record of spiritual movements, 
uprisings and revivals. Multitudes of those who professed to be 
theologians and Scriptural commentators praised it to the skies. 
Large sums were spent for early copies. The numbers sold at the 
beginning were enormous. Every adventitious aid possible was given 
to the sale, and the markets were bulled ecclesiastical l3^ The gudgeons 
were baited with an edition without a hell, and the new orthodox 
revolution, as far as any sort of an insight could be got from the sur- 
face, was an accomplished fact. 

Beneath the surface, however, the revolution did not revolution- 
ize. The established Church of England never would and never has 
approved of it synodically, although it demanded the translation the 
longest and loudest. No other Protestant denomination ever offi- 
cially made use of it in its churches and Sunday-schools. The 
Catholics would not touch it under any circumstances. Families 
proscribed it. Writers and speakers, lay or clerical, so scorned it 
that they would not quote from it. Tabooed, spurned, a failure 
from the beginning, it has now passed almost completely out of 
sight and out of mind. 

And what is the reason for it all? Mr, John Fulton attempts to 
give the reason in the June number of "The Forum," He says in 
substance that too many changes Vv'ere introduced to suit some and 
not enough to suit others. He also thinks that the poetry of many 
passages was impaired by giving them a too literal translation, A 
certain degree of obscurity serves to give a charm to the expression 
of poetical sentiments. No one is pleased with a likeness of a person 
made by measuring his features, and reducing them to a certain 
scale, no matter how attractive they may have been or are. 

Mr. John Fulton does not go deep enough. He does not get 
down to the real bone and sinew of the subject. The translated 
New Testament, or rather the revised edition of the New Testa- 
ment, was the work of a lot of intellectual dudes. They refined 
away poetry, pathos, rugged Saxon, quaint forms of express- 
ion, old landmarks, verses that had been lived and died by for 
centuries, old texts, old promises and old prophecies. One thing 
the people as a mass will never permit to have taken away from 
them, and that is the old-fashioned Bible. They never asked^ for 
any revision. They never for a moment considered that a revision 
was necessary , 

The old King James version was venerated. Since its publi- 
cation it has been a household book, the one sacred record of the 
births, marriages and deaths in a family for a generation. Its 
teachings had brought solace in sorrow, surcease in pain, comfort 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 149 

in affliction, support in misfortune, ease in torment, light in dark- 
ness, and better than all, something when the final summons came 
that made it less dreadful to go down into the valley of the shadow 
and cross over that wonderful river, which in all lands and in all 
tongues has been called the river of death. 

We do not say anythiug about the admirable quality of the 
scholarship manifested in the version of the New Testament, for no 
doubt that was very high and perfect ; but the new translation itself 
was an impossible thing from the start if the intention was to make 
it root out the version that it pretended to correct and beautify. 
It makes no difference what a man may want with his Bible, how he 
may use it, how explain, how expound, how interpret it, he is only 
solicitous to know that it is his father's Bible, and that the refiners, 
the agnostics, the tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee fellows of the last 
half of the nineteenth century have not laid their hands upon that. 
If that is intact all the balance is easy. The denominational pro- 
cession can go forward thereafter as it pleases. Anchored fast to 
his old-fashioned Bible, even the very gates of Greek shall not pre- 
vail against his old-fashioned belief in fire and brimstone. 

THE GERMAN SUCCESSIQN. 

[Kansas City Times, June 14, 1887.] 

If the Crown Prince of Germany is at all superstitious— and most 
thorough soldiers are — and if he reads half the occult stories told 
about him, and half the predictions made as to what his fate is likely 
soon to be, the chances would be good to send him to a premature 
grave through sheer nervous irritation and worriment. 

First, when his father was quite a young man, unmarried and 
sowing his wild oats plentifully, a gypsy told his fortune. He was 
to be king and wear three crowns. He was to have a male heir, but 
the heir was not to succeed him. 

Later on the young man married, and was soon made king of 
Prussia. Afterward of Hanover, then of all Germany. Here was the 
three crowns the gypsy predicted. Still later on, and yet a little while 
before the Franco-Prussian War, the Emperor William again had 
his fortune told. Another gypsy cast his horoscope. He would 
live, the old Zingaree said, until his nicety-secord year, and that 
when he died he would bo succeeded, not by his son, but by his 
grandson. The son would die before his father. This son is the 
present Crown Prince, whose life even at this moment is in immi- 
nent peril. The physicians in attendance upon him — and he has 
some that have a world-wide celebrity — have not yet determined 
what to call the morbid growth in his throat. If it is cancerous, 
like General Grant's, no power short of the Lord Almighty can save 
him from a speedy death. 

The old Emperor William, his father, recalling the two gypsy 
prophecies, is reported as being firmly of the belief that it is cancer, 
and that his son and heir will die within the year. 

Then again the weird, the haunting, the evil-foreboding White 
Lady has been seen again at the Berlin palace. She was never 
known to appear except to indicate some sudden calamity to the 
house of Hohenzollern — most generally death. Since the serious 
illness of the Crown Prince the fact seems to be pretty well authen- 
ticated that she has been seen twice, and each time with a look of 
terror and anguish on her face. She first made her appearance dur- 
ing the reign of the Emperor's mother—- the beautiful, the unfortu- 



150 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

nate and the broken-hearted Louise — and has been part of the 
imperial household ever since. Does her last visit bode evil to the 
Crown Prince? Who knows? 

A NEW REYISION OF THE BIBLE. 

[Kansas City Times, July 23, 1887.] 

A brief cable dispatch announced the other day the fact that 
quite a number of denominational people, whatever that may mean, 
had met in London and discussed freely the ways and means of pre- 
paring another translation of the Bible. They adjourned to meet 
again shortly. 

Make it, gentlemen — make it by all means. Rub up your 
Hebrew and your Greek. Get quickly at your roots, your verbs and 
your conjugations. Print a plentiful supply. Go upon the princi- 
ple that " Mark Twain" did. when dealing with the lightning-rod 
man: " Certainly I will take a rod, ten, fifteen, fifty. Put half a 
dozen on the house, twenty on the barn; put them everywhere. One 
on the servant girl, one on the cow, six on the woodshed and then 
come back to me for further orders. Lightning-rods are great things 
to have in a family." 

But, seriously, what earthly use is there for another translation 
of the Bible? The last one, not yet four years old, fell still-born. 
A few cranks discussed it pro and con, and then it dropped out of 
the public sight forever. Here and there a few enthusiasts pro- 
claimed it from the housetops, but the people went by on the 
other side. Once in a while a sweet geranium leaf of a youngster 
sought to open with it his first call 1o preach, but his congregation 
drew the line at sheol, and he quickly had to hunt another transla- 
tion considerably more ancient. 

People are afraid of new Bibles. Education is everything in 
the matter of faith. Once well set in his religious ways and the 
average man or woman will stick at the crater of Vesuvius, even 
though an eruption is off only the distance of an hour. Habit also 
fills a great space. To be able to find certain texts at the places 
assigned to them is much more potential than to be able to interpret 
them. People cry out against superstition, but it has been one of 
Christianity's handmaidens. It has done a powerful sight of good 
and a powerful sight of harm, but its good deeds are legion as to 
one bad one. So, also, with Christianity itself. About the oM 
Bible there is a sort of superstition that enshrines it and makes it 
invincible. Of course many things enter into the superstition to 
harden and crystallize it, but it exists and can not be cast aside or 
ignored, hence the folly of another translation no matter how per- 
fect of the Holy Scriptures. 

THE REYISEI) BIBLE. 

' [Kansas City Times , July, 1888.] 

The English publishers of the revised edition of the Bible, 
especially the revised New Testament, complain very much that the 
venture, in a business point of view, is a dead failure. There is no 
demand for this revised Bible, either in part or in whole. Much 
money has already been lost, they say, more will be lost, and they 
profess not to be able to understand why the sales are not larger 
and the profits more reassuring. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 151 

A blind man might see why. The masses of the people do 
not want the revised Bible, will not have it, will not buy it, have no 
faith in it, no respect for it, no tolerance for it — aye, for it, in fact, 
they have only supreme contempt and bitter mockery. 

With every human creed, belief, or spiritual profession there 
always goes a certain amount of superstition. It is not the super- 
stition of ignorance. It is not the creed superstition which leads 
to violence, bloodshed and murder. It is not the fanatical super- 
stition which takes the sword in one hand and the crucifix in the 
other. It is not the proselyting superstition which mistakes the 
shadow for the substance, and seeks to bring about universal 
brotherhood by extirpating all freedom of thought and independ- 
ence of action. It is rather the sentimental superstition which 
believes old things to be better than new; the faith of the old days 
more holy than the faith of the new; the old ideas of futurity 
more reverent than the new agnosticism, which does not know; the 
old Bible, as our fathers taught it, more sacred than anything 
a broader learning can fashion, or a higher education make more 
pliable to modern thought and insipid forms of expression. 

Especially does the unvexed and unexpurgated Bible take hold 
of the human imagination and do with it as it pleases. It has been 
handed down from generation to generation. The family's genea- 
logical tree has taken root thee. In sunshine it has sung praises to 
the Lord; in shadow it has poured ointment into the hurts and tem- 
pered the wind to the shorn lamb. Birth saw its precious depository 
busy with the record, and death knew that however the stealth of its 
bereavements, something would be writ to tell of what had been 
given and what had been taken away. 

And then what delightful memories of childhood cluster about 
the old Bible. Call it the King James version, or the Dou ay ver- 
sion, or whatever other version you please, so only it is the old Bible, 
to childhood it is a sentient thing. It has life and breath and 
speech and motion. For every doubt it has an explanation, and for 
every wound a Gilead full of balm. Its promises are articulate, and 
it soothes as it promises. To doubt its inspiration in those halcyon 
days would have been to doubt a father's care or a mother's tender- 
ness. Somehow, no matter how, it grew about the heart and 
became chief among its holy household gods. Every line in it was 
taken literally, interpreted literally, and acted upon literally. 
It provided for a future. It robbed death of the severity of 
its sting; it denied to the grave the exultation of its victory. 
As one grew older it took upon itself shape after shape that 
had not before been discovered, because to be more and more of a 
necessity. It was historical, theological, polemical, scientific, 
hygienic, geological and prophetic. It was a single volume and a 
library. Day after daj'- it gathered unto itself new strength; reading 
after reading it revealed unto the student new beauties of thought 
and new avenues of investigation. All in all, it was to him the most 
satisfying book ever printed, and so when he went out into the world 
for himself, along with the faces of the other near ones and dear 
ones, there went also the form and the face of the idolize d old 
family Bible. 

No wonder, therefore, that the work which would cut and carve 
this precious instrument is almost universally looked upon as sacri- 
legious work, receiving bitter denunciations instead of indorsment, 
or so completely ignored as to entail heavy financial losses upon 
those who, through much learning, vainly imagined that they could 
saturate the Word of God with their Greek and Hebrew refinements 



153 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

and force it upon the recognition of those who yet believe in the 
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures- 

MARRIAGE OF CAPTAIN COLLINS. 

[Kansas City Times August, 1888.] 

So this wary old campaigner has been captured at last. So the 
old veteran battery commander, who never lost a gun in all the four 
years' war. in one swift moment lost both his heart and whatever 
may be looked upon as the blessedness of single life. So this splen- 
did cannoneer, whom General Jo Shelby took as a boy and left as a 
giant, has become as pliant as a woman's necklace in as tender a pair 
of hands as ever threaded the strands of life with the golden beads of 
purity and devotion. Ah! love! love! 

There are thousands of the comrades of Captain Collins thisday 
all over Arkansas, Texas and Missouri who will rejoice that such a 
destiny has come at last to one who has deserved so much at the 
hands of fortune— deserved so much because of truth, courage, gen- 
erous manhood, steadfastness to friendship, perfect honor and a 
faith that will fail not ti]l the end. 

Then if these old comrades of his could have seen his beautiful 
bride — so modest, so gentle, so refined, the dew of the morning of 
her young life yet glistening upon the roses in her cheeks, their con- 
gratulations would have been sent up to him twice, once because of 
the resolution which made him draw near to such a shrine to offer 
incense, and oDce because the priestess who presided there had so 
many of the qualities of splendid American womanhood as to fit her 
perfectly for adoration. 

And now the two go out into the world hand in hand together. 
Perhaps it may be dark sometimes. Perhaps in some mornings no 
birds may be heard to sing. Perhaps fate's hand may now and then 
smite hard and smite the things which are tenderest. ^ Perhaps 
across the home threshold some shadows may fall which can be 
lifted never more until the light that never was on shore or sea lift 
them beyond the wonderful river; but stand up, old comrade, ten- 
der and true. You are the oak. It is for you to sit sentinel by the 
hearthstone, for you to make holy Avith devotion the perfect shelter 
of the roof-tree. Everything that is touching in woman's confi- 
dence has been reposed in you. The perfect purity of a sinless and 
stainless life is yours for the cherishing. The sunhas risen on this 
newer and fuller existence, and that journey has been entered upon 
which must go forward to its final abiding place of domestic happi- 
ness. Since it has been begun, may the good God send to bless 
it those bountiful things w^hich make the flowers to bloom for you, 
and the green sward to be gracious for your feet, and soft winds to 
blow for you, and a perfect possession to come unto you, as the 
gentle night-dews come to a summer's hill. 

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. 

[Kansas City Times, October, 1888.] 
The Boston Herald asks with more plaintiveness than the sub- 
ject demands, it seems to us, when the great American novel may 
be expected. Before such a question could be answered one would 
have to understand what is meant by the great American novel. If 
it is to be a " Les Miserables " of a book, the answer would be easy, 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 153 

for it would consist of the single word never; but until a book in 
some degree approaching this is produced this side of the Atlantic 
it is not Avortli while to talk about any really distinctive or represen- 
tative work of American fiction. 

The American novels, now being printed by the carload and 
scattered broadcast over the country, furnish the best possible evi- 
dence that the IlerakVs question must remain in abeyance for a 
satisfactory answer if not for a whole century at least for the half 
of one. There never was such a ruck of simper, insanity and gush. 
There was never such a reign of platitude, idiocy and drivel. No 
power anywhere. No imagination. No hand that can paint a 
picture to interest, much less to haunt one. Nothing that forces a 
sigh, much less a shudder. Nothing that casts athwart the sky of 
a perfectimbecility a single lurid tiash to tell that the sun of genius 
is about to lift itself above the horizon. 

The old novels, by far the best ever published in this country, 
are no longer read. Who to-day sets any store by James Fenimore 
Cooper ? and yet he was as much of an American as the American 
eagle. The forests at his touch took any hue or color. They were 
green like green seas, or desolate like snow wastes in December. 
They were jocund with bird songs, or hushed as though the vast 
presence of the Angel of Silence brooded in all their branches. He 
put his hand upon the streams and, as they hastened on to the 
sea, they had a speech which he interpreted. He dramatized the 
wigwam and the Indian, the trapper and the scout, and gave to 
the civilization of the border the terse, jjicturesque form of expres- 
sion which even to tbis day, dialect though it be, still retains all 
of its pathos and intensity. His pictures of pioneer life were 
perfect. The hunter, the trapper, the scout, the guide, the red 
v/arrior, the warpath, the block-house, the ambushment, the butch- 
ery — they are as well recognized now as portrayed by this wiz- 
ard as they were in the days when Montcalm pitched his marquee 
in front of Fort William Henry, and poor old Munro, heroic Scotch- 
man though he was, surrendered at last to French finesse and 
Indian deviltry. 

But Cooper is forgotten. And so is Poe. And Hawthorne will 
be by and by. Namby-pambyism is the standard. Any situation 
which would make a mouse squeak is eliminated from all latter-day 
American novels. The end is everything, the denouement as the 
chirrupers like to call it. That mustbe a marriage, everybody happy, 
the hero getting a medicine chest, and a copy of Q odey' s Lady' s Book 
for a wife, and the heroine cetting one of Sam Jones' spider-legged 
dudes and a walking stick for a husband. Hysteria and hair-pin. 
The bustle and the pad. Tootsy-wootsy and baby-boy. Lord of 
Israel ! what a race of chimpanzees would be born into the world 
if these modern American novelists could have the making of its 
procreators. 

Coming like the white butterflies in June, and going like the 
white caterpillars in November, there is one funny sort of a man 
called Henry James, an American in the spring and an Englishman 
in the fall, who has had the audacity to declare that he is the great 
American novelist. Why, he isn't a novelist of any kind, let alone 
an American novelist. If truth had ever had the fashioning of a 
nora de plume for him it would have been insipidity. His women 
wheeze like people with the phthisic. Now and then he has a stat- 
uesque one, and she faints at the sight of a Japanese fan. Skilled 
in essences, and with a smelling bottle always handy, he will go 
into a drawing room aud have four or five on the floor at once, some 



154 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Willi their bodies unlaced and some in hysterics. His men are my 
Lord Fitznoodle, and my Count Nonentity. He an American novel- 
ist ! Henry James the great American novelist ! Yes, just about 
as much as the pine cone on the ground is the gigantic i^ine tree. 

If the Boston Herald is really in distress for a day to come when 
that mythical thing, the great American novel, is to be born, it had 
just as well begin now to tear its hair and rend its garments. Come 
back again, say at the end of another century. The land is too new. 
The standard of taste is too low. There is too much shoddy affec- 
tation, and veneering to the front. The genius of the age lies in 
money getting and money grabbing. The "yaller" covers have the 
boom. Iron is king. Wait for more refinement, luxury and culti- 
vation. Wait for the moccasin tracks to be obliterated. And while 
you are about it, our dear contemporaries, just wait for the Millen- 
nium. 

OUIDA AND ZOLA. 

[Kansas City Times, 1889.1 

There is a literary cliib in Boston composed entirely of women. 
Its name is the " Analytical," and the last subject brought before it 
for discussion was rather a peculiar one, to speak modestly, being 
this: "As between Ouida and Zola, which of the two is the most 
immoral?" 

It is not recorded what the verdict was, if a verdict was indeed 
reached; but the debate, in the event that it took a wide range, must 
have been exceedingly bizarre and somewhat interesting. 

To settle the question of immorality between two such authors, 
not a few edged tools would have to be handled. A spade would 
have to be called a spade most emphatically. Vigorous English 
would have to come in all along the line in no uncertain manner. 
Comparisons would have to be made b}^ direct and apropos quota- 
tions. No mere ipse dixit in thatassenibly would have had the toler- 
ance of a moment. There were the models, stripped from necklace 
to satin slipper, and there were the judges, impassible as Plymouth 
Rock, taking note of each development. 

Between the two authors thus discussed the immorality of 
each — and of course we only refer to their waitings — differs merely 
in the way it is presented. Ouida's immorality is perfumed, 
essenced, plumed, scarfed, jeweled, full of poetry and full of 
romance Zola's is brutal, indiscriminate and low-bred. Ouida is 
always refined, picturesque and suggestive; Zola lays about hira with 
a club. Ouida builds palaces for her Phrynes; Zola is content with 
a rookery. Ouida crowns vice with flowers and decorates it with 
diamonds; Zola is satisfied with rags and tatters. Ouida goes many 
times to mass and sometimes to confession; Zola sneers alike at God 
and devil. Ouida trips daintily to trystings, the red in her cheeks 
and wind in her hair; Zola in great muddy boots that smell of the 
stable. Ouida's approach is heralded by the swish of silk and the 
odor of violets; Zola's by the stumblings of the drunkard and the 
peculiar flavor of absinthe and brandy. Ouida gilds everything — 
touches the cheeks with ?'ow(7e and the eyes with henna; Zola does 
not even use soap and water. Ouida is luxury, sensuousness, down, 
ermine, rare wines, passionate wooings and passionate embraces; 
Zola is mechanical lust put together like a machine and quite as 
soulless. Ouida's assignations have in them the singing of birds, 
and the leaping of sword-blades: Zola's the shivering of glassps in 
tavern brawls and the bacchanalian shouts of vulgar revelers. Ouida 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 155 

quiets conscience, weakens resolution, puts a silken scarf over the 
eyes of purity, baits her traps with bait from a king's table, makes 
a tiuce with continence, gives virtue a plenary indulgence, and lifts 
constantly a curtain for glimpses of Paradise; Zola thrusts rudely 
into the hand a printed bill of fare that orders may be issued 
according to appetite. Ouida appeals to the spirit; Zola to the flesh. 
The immorality of the one has over it always something of a gar- 
ment, transparent though it may be and of the color of flesh; Zola 
does not even put on a tig leaf about the loins. 

These, therefore, are the two styles of immorality which the 
fair ladies of the analytical club no doubt discussed in all the ins 
and outs and ramifications of their putrescence and abomination. 
As none but women were present this discussion in all probability 
took a wide range and license, although we are of the opinion that 
Ouida had the most votes. 

What next? 

IS DEATH ALL 2 

[Kansas City Times.'] 

There come up in connection with Colonel Ingersoll's eulogy 
delivered upon the life and character of Roscoe Conkling some 
serious thoughts. To Ingersoll he was a paladin. Yes, and to many 
another besides Ingersoll. He is desribed by the orator as being 
brave, true, clean, immovable in his friendships, and unalterable in 
his love. The country knew that long ago. We put aside all of 
Ingersoll's slush, wherein the bloody shirt and abolitionism are 
mixed in equal proportions, and come directly to the question: 
Where, beyond the grave, is the Pantheon for such a hero? 

Take this great American as he is put upon Ingersoll's canvas. 
Look at his face, his eyes, his 2^ose, his stature sind his whole com- 
manding presence in every feature and aspect. Is no soul there? 
If there'is a soul, who gave it? Into M'hose hands does it return? 
Is it annihilation? Do men like Napoleon, Caesar. Hannibal, Victor 
Hugo and a whole mighty array of other giants disappear into noth- 
ingness? 

It can not be. It is against reason, common sense, revealed 
religion, the Bible, the agony in the garden, the torture on the cross. 
It is also against human nature. Man, in any state, is supremely 
selfish. He wants a hereafter. He wants another w^orld when he 
gets old, a place to lie down, to sleep, perhaps to dream. Life's 
battle may have borne against him heavily. Bosoms — despite all 
love, and courage, and watchfulness, and tenderness — have been 
stricken home at his side. He know^s where his graves are. The 
dew falls upon them like a benediction . The birds sing above them 
as they do when they find sweet seed in the summer grasses. He is 
worn now, and feeble and far spent. He dies, and Ingersoll says 
that death is the last of him. He turns to a leaf, a sprout, a shrub, 
perhaps a four-leaf clover, perhaps a head of timothy, it may be one 
thing or it may be another; but, whatever it is. the end is utter 
oblivion. 

It is against every selfish instinct of man that such a fate is 
desirable. In his inner being there is a constant revolt against such 
abominable paganism. Indeed, it is worse than paganism. Pagan- 
ism did have its altars, its shrines, its sacred groves, its temples, its 
vestal virgins, its priests, its augurs, its elysian fields, its gods, its 
goddesses, its spirits of good and of evil; but it never had extinc- 
tion. Instead, it had sinners immortal in their capacity to suffer 



156 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

and endure. It had Pluto and Prometheus; it had Proserpine and 
Acteon; it had Midas and Tantalus; it had the Furies and the 
Eumenides, but its future was never without a resurrection. That 
has remained for the superior development of the nineteenth 
century — steam everywhere; electricity everywhere; oceans speaking 
to the land through great coils of wires that even teach the fishes a 
speech, and cause the great yet invisible monsters of the deep to 
send forth their avants courier, their krakens, their sea serpents, 
their devils of indescribable things which have as many arms as a 
wheel has spokes, and in each arm the strength of a screw- 
propeller — send them forth to know all the meaning of the 
new things men have invented who are totally without souls, and 
yet with an intelligence equal to the angels. In fact, this wonder- 
tul period in the life of mankind has waited for Robert G. Ingersoll. 
It may be all as he says, but he has put his race at a terrible dis- 
advantage. He has made of them mummies, monkeys and blocks 
of wood. As far as he could he has burned out the eyes of faith. 
He has taken from cripples, paralytics and deformed people what 
little staff and script they had for this unknown journey, creeping 
on apace and making fiercer and fiercer inroads at every returning 
season. He has made of the holy mysteries things to deride, ridi- 
cule, spit on, daub with mud, dress in rags and scarify like lepers. 
And then to think that he had the audacity to deliver a eulogy on 
Roscoe Conkling. Sacrilege! Sacrilege! Sacrilege! 

THE NEW YEAR. 

To all things there must come a past — to those who sin and 
love and suffer and repent, and who go on through life and make 
no prayer or moam, it is well, in the infinite wisdom of God, that 
there is a past. The heart buries its treasures there. It is full of 
sad, sweet faces lying asleep in the sepulchres, full of ' * broken vows 
and pieces of rings." There, when life was at its flood and the world 
full of all glad and green-growingthings, it held so many memories 
that came only when youth and hope were strong and rare, like 
winsome lock of hair, some garment of spice-smell or sky-color, 
some apple-tree white and pink with blossoms, some tune that came 
in with the sunset and lingered until the night had fallen, some 
snowy tents of the dogwood perched beyond the early green of 
meadows washed with dew and wiped withthe moonshine, some t wi- 
light trysting by the garden-gate, the moon bending low in the 
West and the twilight busy with the lilacs, some lapsing flow of 
running water where the tree-tops were jubilant with nests and 
tremulous with many wings — something that came only in the first 
spring-time and affluence of life, and that lingers until the stars 
have faded one by one, and the sounds are heard of the waves of 
the wonderful river. 

The new year comes, however, and behind itare all the old and 
crowded years, some of them glad as with sunshine, and some of 
them sorrowful as with tears. It is best neither to remember nor 
forget. Let the past lie out peacefully among its sepulchers and its 
shadows, and let the present be all our own. There are rugged bat- 
tles yet to fight, there are triumphs yet in store, there is work for all 
who know the meaning of that simple word duty, there are fields to 
cultivate, consecrated efforts to put forth, and "l^ustrious examples 
to set for all the future. Nothing is los^ or thrown away. Poor 
finite hearts that yearn, and doubt, and stand aside abashed as the 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 157 

great cavalcade of high deeds and heroic actions go by, have only- 
need to lift themselves up and become as giants in the march of prog- 
ress. It will be dark many times, and the winds will blow cold, 
and the clouds will gather; but after the midnight the morning, and 
after the cold, gray dawn in the east, the blue sky filled with its sun- 
shine and its bountiful and temperate air. 

WHOSE FAULT IS IT 1 

In a recent discourse the Rev. J. P. Newman is reported to have 
said, in referring to the Chicago anarchists : The cry goes up to-day 
for absolute liberty, destroy the Bible, tear down the churches, 
exile the pastors, abolish the Sabbath. Could any American citizen 
have anticipated ten years ago such an advance ? Would any 
American citizen ten years ago have foretold that to-day men call- 
ing themselves good citizens and Christians would sign and circulate 
a petition for the pardo'n of those whose hands are red with the 
blood of the keepers of the peace and defenders of the public safety ? 
What is back of this anarchy ? This foul, revolutionary movement 
of miserable, cowardly wretches, who ought to have been hung long 
ago ? Liberty means obedience to law, absolute liberty has no place 
in this land, and he who comes to us from abroad should under- 
stand that for those who yell for absolute liberty and its practices, 
we have the dungeon, the gallows, or exile. 

This is all very well as far as it goes, but it has merely skimmed 
the surface of the evil which afflicts the country. Who pities those 
dynamiters of Chicago? Who is lifting a hand to save them from 
the rope except those who are but little better than they ? Dr. 
Newman need not have belabored these straw men so furiously. 
They are the mere outgrowth of a poison that lies deeper; that 
has been at work for thrice ten years; that is as difficult to eradi- 
cate as leprosy; that the pulpit has had as much to do in making 
deadly as a morass has in breeding malaria; that is becoming more 
intense every day, more destructive and more impervious to medi- 
cament — we mean the poison of infidelity. 

The gravitation toward a religion that has neither a Bible nor 
a Savior has been going on steadily in the United States for thirty 
years. It began wiien the New Testament was prostituted by the 
elimination of an actual devil and a real hell. It began when a 
reign of sensationalism set in, and when texts were not taken from 
the Holy Scriptures, but from the most abnormal and outrageous 
events of everyday society, the more fashionable the better and the 
more given over to worldliness and display. 

What has become of the old-fashioned orthodoxy? What of 
a faith that once had to be manifested by works? What of Bible 
verses and Bible expoundings? What of the whole congregation 
joining in old-fashioned hymns, sometimes quaint but always 
full of that kind of pathos which made people stronger and better 
for the singing? What of the lowly meeting houses, with wooden 
benches and uncarpeted aisles? 

Fashion has killed them all. Infidelity has done its work all 
too well, bringing to aid it as faithful allies agnosticism, material- 
ism, atheism, doubt, questioning, ridicule, politics, prohibition, 
the world, the flesh and the devil. The race is fast becoming one 
of scoffers and unbelievers. It has no use for preachers who make 
violent partisans out of themselves, and go about mixing in every- 
thing that belongs to the ballot-box, and the meetings. Before it 



158 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

will listen to them it will go to the other extreme and assume an 
air of infidel bravado out of their disgust or defiance. "Who hears 
religion preached any more in the fashionable churches? It has 
become to be considered a species of anguish to call Jesus Christ 
any longer the Son of God. The inspiration of the Bible is a 
myth that has been sent to keep company with the sea serpent. 
The whole beautiful and appealing plan of salvation, made touch- 
ing and supremely lovable through the life, the teachings, the cruci- 
fixion, and the resurrection of an immortal sacrifice, is now no 
more accounted of than the bleeding and empty skin of a slaugh- 
tered bullock. The road to Heaven has been made musical with 
resonant organs and choirs of singing people who sing operatic airs 
that boldly proclaim the green room and ogle the can-can not a 
little wantonly. 

And then the texts. Sermons have been preached on base ball, 
on horse racing, on watering places, on battle flags, on cipher dis- 
patches, on the waltz, on victorious armies, on the navy and what 
it did in the war, on forty acres and a mule, on Ingersoll, a 
cart load or two on Guiteau, one in this town on Jesse James, 
quite a number on the address Ingalls made concerning Ben Hill, 
10,000 probably on Grant, not so many on Garfield; but precious 
few about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 

Nor is Dr. J. P. Newman any better than a good many others 
who have thus made the pulpit a place for man canonization and the 
church a place for man idolatry. He has preached more politics to 
the square inch of brain than any other preacher in the country. 
When Grant was president he never had a favorite colt to chafe its 
tail, that this inspector of consulates did not give his congregation 
a discourse on the misfortune. Toady always, and spread-eagle 
always, is it any wonder that such so-called expoundersof the gospel 
drive men in multitudes into any species of unbelief whicn will 
array them openly against these charlatans and impostors? 

Socialism is accursed of God, but so is infidelity. No nation 
mentioned yet in all history ever prospered a single hour or in a 
single undertaking after it abandoned the simple belief and faith of 
its fathers, for with these go truth, virtue, honesty and patriotic 
manhood. It is no longer capable of making heroic sacrifices. It 
is no longer fit tc rise up against adversity, affliction or chastise- 
ment. Its spiritual torpor is complete, and it is physically incapa- 
ble of a single emotion. There are many instances recorded where 
the pulpits have killed liberty. 

GONE DOWN AT SEA. 

The blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean were blended 
together when the City of Boston sailed away from England in the 
springtime, westward bound. It is winter now, and snows have 
fallen, and the faces of all the seas have been white with the wrath 
and the pain of the tempest, but never more forever will there come 
up from the great deep a whisper to tell where the brave ship went 
down. Three hundred were on board. Mothers were there with 
their children newly born; maidens were there upon whose fair 
heads had blown the pleasant winds of France, and in whose eyes 
were the light of English summers ; youth stood upon the prome- 
nade deck looking far into the future, with hope that had upon its 
wings the morning and the sunrise ; manhood's stalwart faith gazed 
camly on the azure face of the eternal ocean, and listened to the 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 159 

voices of the tide as one hears soft music in a dream ; beauty- 
lingered late among the happy hours that had for solace merriment 
and laughter ; and all the stars were kind, and all the elfin lights 
that danced along the deep took mermaid shapes aad whirled and 
sported round the ship as though 'twere sailing in among the islands 
of the blessed. Blithe battle blowing all about the sunny slopes of 
France, and in amid the vine leaves and the vines as running water, 
took eyes and hearts from the ocean bird sailing grandly on 
to her inarticulate death. Was there any storm, clothed with 
the wind and hurricane, that grappled and overthrew the ves- 
sel? Nobody knows. Did the fiery lightning run all along 
the spars and light the sails and shrouds and hull for funeral pyre? 
The ebb and flow of moon-made tides carry no message back to 
either shore. Oh! it was pitiful, that death — "alone, alone, all 
alone — alone on the wide, wide sea. " Some died and made no moan , 
Some must have floated with drenched, loose arms flung wide apart 
and smiles of childhood on the wan, thin faces. Was the night 
brooding upon the water, moonless and starless? Could a south 
wind have blown, perfumed with land odors, only to bring the 
skeleton reaper and the pitiless storm? What said all the beautiful 
maidens in death's broken and touching talk? Were not the 
mother's eyes more steadfast than any there, and were not her prayers 
more holy and fervent as she lifted her face to heaven— a face 
that bore a living likeness to the fair-haired boy in tears upon her 
bosom? Was it morning when the good ship went down, and had 
the night, like a corpse abandoning a bier, stolen the shroud from 
the face of the ocean ? In all the lost three hundred was there one to 
whom death came as a benediction — one that smiled sweetly as the 
angry, crawling waves came up the oaken ribs, and murmured 
wearily and wistfully to ears that could not hear: 

"Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, 
Thou are subtlcifand cruel of heart, men say; 
Thou hast taken, and shall not render again; 
Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they; 
But death is the worst that comes of thee"; 
Thou art fed with our dead , O Mother, O sea, 
But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when, 
Having- given us love, hast thou taken away?" 

Oh, but nothing mangles, and rends, and devours like the sea. 
It laughs with insatiable lips and comes to its prey screened by the 
zephyrs and by gracious and temperate airs. The clouds and the 
waves conspire. There is a gulf in the sky and a gulf in the ocean, 
and all between is the freighted bark, having frail things, and beau- 
tiful things for cargo and ballast, run from billow to billow, and a 
great noise is heard as of agony and fear, and hard bestead and 
hunted like a wounded, stricken thing, the good ship. City of Bos- 
ton went down and left no piece of wreck, no spar, no white face 
swollen with the sleep of death, no bonnie tress of hair coiled about 
and tangled with seaweed, no broken and battered boat, no whisper 
in wind or air to tell how the wild waves went over all. 

There are hearts yet in the old world and the new that are lis- 
tening for the signal guns which tell of her offing truly made and 
her anchors fast in the harbor of repose. The laughing morning 
winds, fed with the dew and the sunrise have tripped over the 
grave of the wreck, and when they had passed the sea wore its placid 
smile, and there were no murmurs to tell of the three hundred 
sleeping peacefully beneath. The hurricane and the tempest have 
rocked them down amid the coral caves of old ocean, but no dreams 



160 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

come to the eternal slumber and no noises entered into the everlast- 
ing rest. Is it best so? Poor, finite souls that only feel love's cease- 
less vigils and stretch in vain the longing arms of hopeless sorrow, 
think little of the faith which bids them weep no more and pray 
for hope and consolation. The morning brings no ship and night 
no dear ones to the home-hearth swept since the day of sailing. It 
can not be that the secrets of the drowned must remain forever in 
the inexorable bosom of the sea. Surely some wave will bear them 
shoreward, some drift take them out to the islands where summer 
is eternal and where shipwrecks never come. 

BETTER WAR BY LAND THAN SEA. 

[Kansas City Times.} 

The talk is still of earthquake, shipwreck and disaster. By 
land and sea the face of the Lord appears to be turned away from 
the people. 

It is impossible to read the stories which come from Italy with- 
out a shudder at the wholesale destruction of so nmch life and 
property. Villages disappear as a stranded ship on a pitiless lee 
shore. Towns are blotted out as though a swift hand, holding a 
sponge, had suddenly washed away the figures on a blackboard. 
This hand, however, is appalling, for it emerges from the darkness 
and retires again into the darkness. It is death, but it is the sort of 
death that comes to the far south on the east wind, weaving its 
winding sheets where the jangles are, and leaping out from the 
dark lagoons, a horrid specter, just when all nature is most jocund 
and when, in listening to the birds, one can dream iu his dreams 
that surely such songs must also be sung in 

" The sweet fields of Eden." 

Cities — wherein it has been joyous to live, and wherein peace, 
and all the good angels who wait upon her, have dwelt together as 
vestal virgins in a temple — have heard the blowing as of some titanic 
subterranean horns, and have seen walls crash down and palaces 
crumble as though a legion of imprisoned Joshuas were reaching 
upward again for that sun which will never stand still any more in 
the plains of Agalon. 

The priest dies by the altar. In the cradle the baby croons and 
goes to sleep forever. The strong man turns, as it were, sword in 
hand, to defend his househokl. The gray hairs of age count for 
nothing beyond the old, immemorial aureole. Tbemotlier, l)eauti- 
ful in the august beauty of accepted death, rushes to guard li'^r chil- 
dren and perishes above them as though she, too, had the Douglas 
blood in her veins, as when 

" Dead above the heart of Bruce 
The heart of Uouglas laj." 

There were revels and routs and balls. In several of the 
stricken places bridal affairs were in process of consummation. 
Music abounded. Odors were everywhere. On the silk and salin 
edges of the throngs the click as of castanets came to stir the blood, 
as the blast of bugles do in battle. These were the feet of the 
merry dancers " dancing in tune." 

Suddenly death took a hand in all too many of these transac- 
tions; as he came at Herculaneum , as he came at Pompeii; as he has 
come so often, so often to so many iu the first springtime and affluence 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 161 

of youth; to so many who liave never known any other season 
except spring, with its passion flowers, or summer with its roses — so 
he came to many a shattered and desolated hamlet, or village, or 
town in Italy. Every sort of shape we have described death took 
in its recent terrible visitations, and our own people barely catch 
glimpses of the real horrors of the work done by these dreadful 
upheavals. The inmates of churches, convents, schools, palatial 
residences, hovels, marts of commerce, all avenues of trade and 
trathc have perished in a moment, have been multilattd or crippled 
or robbed of everything which is really fit to make life enjoyable. 

If a certain number of the human race have to be destroyed 
violently, as many contend, to maintain the equilibrium of the pop- 
ulation, why not let them be destroyed through war? Only the 
strong, then, the fearless and tbe ambitious, have to go. Glory 
awaits the survival of the fittest. They can see death as he waits for 
them. He is yonder in that battery's smoke. Where that tawny 
earthwork crouches, all about it seemingly asleep, as seme gorged 
wild beast in its lair, he has been in ambush since the early morn- 
ing. Take care! Those half-bent figures, with guns at a trail, just 
creeping like panthers into the right-hand thicket, are as so many 
spectral fingers pointing to death's unerring line of battle. You hear 
in the darkness the clanking of steel scabbards, cries, oaths, the neigh- 
ing of horses, a steady tramp, tramp, as of waves breaking on a 
beach, and a low, continuous rumble, as of thunder at sea. Be 
ready! Death is marching through the night to do its deadly work 
in the daylight. An attacking army is getting into line. 

But who perish? Only men — men — men! Young, stalwart 
fellows, lusty food for gunpowder, and fit to get over yonder all the 
Ihouris and odalisques that may be had in the warrior's Paradise. 
-No children perish. No babes at the breast. No aged people at the 
brink of the grave. No priest at the altar. No brides " betwixt the 
red wine and the chalice." 

A CLOSE CALL. 

[Kansas City Times.^ 

The assassin who fired point blank at Jules Ferry, not probably 
'Over five feet away, surely meant to kill him. He hit him twice, but 
it appears as if neither bullet broke the skin, much less penetrated. 
In this no doubt many will see a miracle — those who are always 
seeking for signs, signals, portents, and interpretation outside of 
human nature and common sense. The multitude, however, will 
'Only see a very indifferent pistol and powerfully poorgunpowder. 

Jules Ferry is one of the strongest men intellectually in France. 
He is a philosopher, a bit of a stoic, not given to retrospects, never 
disturbed by illusions and looks askance at the French republic as 
if it were some untamable mustang of a thing, dangerous to mount 
:and impossible to ride. In addition, he lives up to Talleyrand's 
famous motto: "Never have anything to do with an unlucky man." 

But as to Jules Ferry's politics — ah! that is quite another mat- 
tter. He may be a Republican and he may not. A Bonapartist, 
then? Never. Of that dynasty he once said: " In that nest there 
was only one eagle. The world can not afford such eagles but 
irarely in tlie centuries." 

Orleanist? No. The younger generations of Louis Philippe, 
'Charles X., and that other old fellow of Chambord, with his lillies 
an place of the tri-color, and that preposterous soubriquet of his of 



162 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Dieudonne — the God-given— do not fuse, can not unite their forces, 
have no cohesion, have no sense, don't know France, don't know its 
population. They belong to his proscribed crowd of unlucky 
people. 

Opportunist? That may be. An Opportunist in politics is 
what an Agnostic is in religion, in either surrounding, the creed 
thoroughly summed up, is this: I do not know. There may be a 
devil and tnere may not. There may be something above in the 
shape of a New Jerusalem and there may not. After this life there 
may be another and there may not. After death there may be a 
resurrection and there may not. I do not know. 
This is the Agnostic. 

The Opportunist reasons pretty much in the same way. Every- 
thing and nothing are taken for granted. There may be a war with 
Germany. Very well. There may be a Russian alliance. Still 
very well. Perhaps one of these days a coiq^ d'etat may come 
along. It would not surprise me. A republic is impossible in 
France. I have never denied it. The army at heart is for a mon- 
archy. That does not surprise me. I simply do not know. What- 
ever the new broom may be, I shall take good care to have hold of 
the handle. Is, then, M. Jules Ferry a Republican? Evidently the 
poor fool who tried to kill him thought not, as did those who were 
back of him, and who probably sent him to the galleys for the bal- 
ance of his natural lifetime^ They will scarcely cut off his head. 
The guillotine now-a daysis a kind of an aristocratic institution. It 
has spilt so much blood of blue-blooded people first and last that 
the thing has become to have a sort of horrible prescience. Some- 
thing of the souls of those great ones whom it has put to death may 
have entered into its own mechanical organization. Mark you, a 
king died under its knife. And a queen. And heroic old generals 
grown gray in war, with only their scars to tell their story. And 
orators whose eloquence belongs to immortality. And that colossus 
Danton, whose tramp across the surface of France shook Europe, 
and at the roar of whose terrible voice armies sprang instantly into 
life and marched away to the frontier — why, indeed, should not the 
guillotine be a little bit particular now about its victim, and be 
granted some favors in the way of discriminating between criminals? 
M. Ferry is not the man who can touch the fiber of the national 
heart of France, which is in constant vibration either sensitively 
or violently, because he is not in unison with it. Between political 
parties who decimate and immolate one another, he is clearly of the 
opinion that it is not best to tear too many passions to tatters. In 
the days gone by he was a stubborn fighter in the ranks of whatever 
opposition was uppermost, but always in the ranks of the opposition. 
Of late he has neither written much nor spoken scarcely any at all. 
He is of the opinion that the republic does not know what it wants 
nor whither it is going. No doubt he is tired. He has reached that 
age in life when he would like to think a little. He sees all the par- 
ties about him actuated rather by likes than by hopes, by aversions 
rather than by principles. He sees no brilliant star arising amid the 
mists of the evening to guide new generations aright on the pathway 
that leads to his ideal republic, and he doubts, folds liis hands and 
sets still. 

Why, of all other men, he should have been singled out to be 
murdered, surpasses all understanding on this side of the ocean. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 163 

THE KILLING OF JESSE JAMES. 

[Sedalia Democrat, April, 1881.] 

" Let not Caesar's servile minions, 
Mock the lion thus laid low: 
'Twas no foeman's hand that slew him. 
'Twas his own that struck the blow." 

No one among all the hired cowards, hard on the hunt for blood- 
money, dared face this wonderful outlaw, one even against twenty, 
until he had disarmed himself and turned his back to his assassins, 
the first and only time in a career which has passed from the realms 
of an almost fabulous romance into that of history. 

We called him outlaw, and he was, but Fate made him so. When 
the war came he was just turned of fifteen. The border was all 
aflame with steel, and fire, and ambuscade, and slaughter. He flung 
himself into a ban.d which had a black flag for a banner and devils for 
riders. What he did he did, and it was fearful. But it was war. 
It was Missouri against Kansas. It was Jim Lane and Jennison 
against Quantrell, Anderson and Todd. 

When the war closed S^esse James had no home. Proscribed, 
hunted, shot, driven away from among his people, a price put 
upon his head — what else could the man do, with such a nature, 
except what he did do? He had to live. It was his country. 
The graves of his kindred were there. He refused to be ban- 
ished from his birthright, and when he was hunted he turned sav- 
agely about and hunted his hunters. Would to God he were 
alive to-day to make a righteous butchery of a few more of them. 

There never was a morecowardly and unnecessary murder com- 
mitted in all America than this murder of Jesse James. It was 
done for money. It was done that a few might get all the money. 
He had been living in St. Joseph for months. The Fords were 
with him. He was in the toils, for they meant to betray him. 
He was in the heart of a large city. One word would have sum- 
moned 500 armed men for his capture or extermination. Not 
a single one of the attacking party need to have been hurt. If, 
when his house had been surrounded, he had refused to surrender, 
he could have been killed on the inside of it and at long range. The 
chances for him to escape were as one to 10,000, and not even 
that; but it was never intended that he should be captured. It 
was his blood the bloody wretches were after — blood that would 
bring money in the official market of Missouri. 

And this great commonwealth leagued wilh a lot of self-con- 
fessed robbers, highwaymen and prostitutes to have one of its citi- 
zens assassinated, before it was positively known he had ever com- 
mitted a single crime worthy of death. 

Of course everything that can be said about the dead map to 
justify the manner of his killing, will be said ; but who is saying, it? 
Those with the blood of Jesse James on their guilty souls. Those 
who conspired to murder him. Those who wanted the reward, and 
would invent any lie or concoct any diabolical story to get it. They 
have succeeded, but such a cry of horror and indignation at the 
infernal deed is even now thundering over the land that if a single 
one of the miserable assassins had either manhood, conscience, or 
courage, he would go, as another Judas, and hang himself. But so 
sure as God reigns, there never was a dollar of blood-money obtained 
yet which did not bring with it perdition. Sooner or later there 



164 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

comes a day of vengeance. Some among the murderers are mere 
beasts of prey. These, of course, can only suffer through cold, or 
hunger or thirst; but whatever they dread most that thing will hap- 
pen. Others again among the murderers are sanctimonious deviis 
who plead the honor of the State, the value of law and order, the 
splendid courage required to shoot an unarmed man in the back of 
the head; and these will be stripped to their skin of all their preten- 
sions, and made to shiver and freeze, splotched as they aie and 
spotted and piebald with blood, in the pitiless storm of public con- 
tempt and condemnation. This to the leaders will be worse than 
deaih. 

Nor is the end yet. If Jesse James had been hunted down ps 
an}^ other criminal, and killed while trying to escape or in resiibiing 
arrest, not a word would have been said to the contrary, tie had 
sined and he had suffered. In his death the majesty of the law 
would have been vindicated ;but here the law itself becomes a mu) d< Tfr. 
It leagues with murderers. It hires murderers. It aids and abtls 
murderers. It borrows money to pay and reward murdereis. 
It promises immunity and protection to murderers. It is itself a 
murderer — the most abject, the most infamous, and the most cow- 
ardly ever known to history. Therefore this so-called law is an out- 
law, and these so-called executors of the law are outlaws. There- 
fore let Jesse James' comrades — and he has a few remaining worth 
all the Fords and Littles that could be packed together between St. 
Louis and St. Joe — do unto them as they did unto him. Yes, the 
end is not yet, nor should it be. The man had no trial. What 
right had any officer of this State to put a price upon his head and 
hire a band of cut-throats and highwaymen to murder him for 
money ? 

Anything can be told of man. The whole land is filled with 
liars and robbers, and assassins. IMurder is easy for a hundred 
dollars. Nothing is safe that is pure or unsuspecting, or just, tut 
it ia not to be supposed that the law will become an ally and a 
CO- worker. in this sort of a civilization. Jesse James hrs been 
murdered, first, because an immense price had been set upon his 
head, and there isn't a low-lived scoundrel to-day in Missouri who 
wouldn't kill his own father for mone}^ ; and second, becauFo he 
was made the scape-goat of every train robber, foot-p^d and hieh- 
wayman between Iowa and Texas. Worse men a thousand times 
than the dead man have been hired to do this thing. Tlie very 
character of the instruments chosen shows the infam( us nature of 
the work required. Thehand that slew him had to be a traitor's ! Into 
all the warp and woof of the devil's work there were threads woven 
by the fingers of a harlot. What a spectacle ! Missouri, wiih 
splendid companies and regiments of militia. Missouri, with a 
hundred and seventeen sheriffs, as brave and as efficient on the aver- 
ago as any men on earth. Missouri, with a watchful and vigilant 
marshal in every one of her principal towns and cities. Missouri, 
with every screw and cog and crank and lever and wheel of her 
administrative machinery in perfect working order. Missouri, with 
all her order, progress and development, had yet to surrender all 
these in the face of a single man — a hunted, ifed-upon, proscribed 
and outlawed man, trapped and located in the midst of thirty-five 
thousand people — and ally with some five or six cut-throats and 
prostitutes that the majesty of the law might be vindicated, and the 
good name of the State saved from all further reproach ! Saved ! 
Why, the whole State reeks to-day with a double orgy— that of lust 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 1(55 

and that of murder. What the men failed to do, the women 
accomplished. 

Tear the two bears from the flag of Missouri. Put thereon, in 
place of them, as more appropriate, a thief blowing out the brains 
of an unarmed victim, and a brazen harlot, naked to the waist and 
splashed to the brows in blood. 

"VETERAN SAM. " 

[Kansas City Times, July 31, 1884.] 

My Dear Friend — Enclosed please find a picture of an old 
friend of yours. You will probably recognize him as the old "Col- 
orado Sam" who helped to escort you and General Marmaduke 
across Current River, by way of Chalk Bliifl:, and again met you at 
Prairie Grove, and was on the "war-path" all through the "Price 
Raid," and all through Missouri, bushwhacking around against your 
boys. 

I have him now at home, a living monument of what once was 
the most faithful friend that man ever had in "times that tried men's 
souls." A faithful and obedient servant in war, and a loviug and 
true friend in peace; a target for Confederate bullets; roughing 
it with the boys; oftentimes lialf fed and ridden well nigh to 
death, he never complained. All through the great struggle of the 
bitterest war that was ever waged, he never failed in the performance 
of his allotted duty, and now at thirty years of age, he has found a 
home with his old master, there to pass away the remaining years of 
his life, amid all the luxuries that horseflesh could desire. A play- 
thing for the children, a pet for the women and a friend and comrade 
of the man that fought with and against him, "Veteran Sam," long 
may he live. Your old friend, 

E. W. Kingsbury. 
P. S. — I expect to ride him at the celebration of Blaine's inaug- 
ural. 

"VETERAN SAM." 

[St. Joseph Gazette, August 3, 1881.] 

Elsewhere in to-day's paper we publish a letter from an old 
friend and associate of the old days, Capt. E. W. Kingsbury, now 
of Kansas City. It will explain itself. It will tell of a veteran 
war horse, thirty years of age, which has at last come back into 
the hands of his old master, where, if tenderness and affection can 
avail aught, he will have added to the already lengthy span of his 
life many more good and thrifty years. 

Captain Kingsbury commanded Company A, of the Second 
Colorado Cavalry Regiment, and if there was a finer company or a 
galanter Captain in either army, the war history up to date makes 
no mention of the fact. Indeed, the whole Regiment was noted for 
its staying and fighting qualities. Quantrell'and his lieutenants 
had been doing pretty much as they pleased along the Kansas 
border until the Second Colorado came. They would congregate, 
make a desperate dash, do some sudden deed of wholesale killing, 
and disappear. Seeing in the night like any other beasts of prey, 
they mustered and raided while it was the darkest. Ordinarily they 
were never followed into the brush. Ordinarily the foremost 
among the great bulk of the pursuers stopped short at the timber 
line as though it were a line of unindurable fire. 



166 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Composed largely of plainsmen, miners, men of the frontier 
and old Indian fighters, the Coloradans stopped at nothing. Whether 
by day or by night, when they struck a trail they followed it to a 
funeral. " Damn these fellows," Quantrell used to say, over and 
over again, " will nothing ever stop them?" It was very hard to do. 
Shelby was the only man who ever did, and he had to give up about 
eight hundred of his very best in less than an hour's fighting to do 
even that much. It was near Newtonia, Newton County, Missouri 
— a place where was fought one of the quickest, hottest, bloodiest 
little combats of the Civil War. It was the last combat of the Price 
Raid, of 1864, and took place on a prairie almost as level as a sea 
strand. Shelby was still covering the rear of Price's stricken expe- 
ditionary column, as he had been, day and night, ever since the fight 
at Mine Creek, near to where Pleasanton, Kansas, now stands. 
Every furious onslaught had failed either to break or shake his hold 
loose from the rear. He fought, ran, turned about, fought again, 
ran some more, wheeled round again, still kept fighting, and finally 
saved everything that was left to him to save after Mine Creek. 

Blunt, a grand soldier in every way, and a grand man besides — 
took up the hunt where Pleasanton left it off, and poured after the 
fleeing Confederates a devouring tide of veteran horsemen, the Sec- 
ond Colorado leading, with Captain Kingsbury and his company in 
advance of the Regiment. They had two or three squadrons of 
white houses, and wherever these were encountered the Confederates 
knew well always that the Second Colorado was to the front. 

Shelby, as he took position in front of Blunt, spoke to his 

advance, a picked body of soldiers, in curt,sententious phrase : "Boys, 

' there are our old white horses again. It's the Second Colorado. It 

is going to be a stricken field for somebody. I can't fall back any 

further, and they won't." 

Thereafter the combat was a duel. The white horses went 
down fast, but so did a good many other horses which were not 
white. Most generally where the steed lay, there also lay his rider. 
No one, unless he has been a participant in a prairie fight between 
two bodies of veteran soldiers,, knows how bloody and pitiless they 
most of them were. No tree, no hillock, no sway of the ground, no 
shelter. It was a savage grapple out on the open, where, when all 
was done, he who held the field had nothing to exalt himself over 
him who surrendered it, fighting. Captain Kingsbury was badly 
wounded at Newtonia, and so was his brave old horse, "Veteran 
Sam," a picture of whom, in his thirtieth year, his old master has 
just sent to the editor of this newspaper. 

This little present is prized much. It recalls events of the old 
war days which were made happy, some of them, with faithful com- 
radeship, and some of them made sad as with tears. Perhaps no 
two bodies of opposing soldiers ever had more real respect for each 
other, or of tener gave evidence of it than did Shelby's men and the 
Coloradans. They fought each other desperately, but wlien the 
fighting was done whichever side held the field that side made mer- 
ciful haste to look after the wounded. Since the war, and when- 
ever any of these two bodies meet, there is always a lovefeast. In 
Jackson county, where fully two regiments of Shelby's old soldiers 
used to reside, and where there are living to-day many of Quant- 
rell's most savage guerrillas. Captain Kingsbury's name is a house- 
hold word, and many is the story they tellto this day of the daring 
and prowess of the " Colorado boys." 

In wishing again, therefore, a still further lease of life for 
" Veteran Sam," we do not well see how we could put it stronger 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 167 

than by wishing that he may live until his gallant master rides him 
at the "celebration of Blaine's inaugural." 

ADDRESS ACCEPTING A FLAG. 

[From the Camden, Arkansas, Herald, February 26, 1864.] 
Captain J. N. Edwards, of Shelby's Brigade, received the 
banner on the part of the escort, with the following address: 
Ladies, Mr. Speaker and Soldiers: 

In receiving this Hag, as the representative of this Company, I 
take upon myself a proud and pleading task. Made by the fair hands 
of woman; dedicated to a grand and glorious cause; sanctified by 
the holy symbols of a true faith— its crest to-day is as bright as the 
sunlight that flashes on steel. Pure and stainless as an angel-guarded 
child, it must never be dishonored. It is confided to your keeping 
as a tender and timid maiden gives her virgin heart to the first sweet 
whisperings of love. Cherish it, protect it, fight for it, die for it. 
There is a day to come when it must receive its baptism of fire and 
blood in the rattle of discordant musketry, and the thunder of impa- 
tient drums. Let it ever be on the crest of battle, iis blue folds the 
meteor of the storm, its bright associations cheering the warrior's 
heart like the white plume of Navarre. Once more the spring time 
comes with the tread of invading armies, and the shouts of cruel 
foe. The road is plain and the path is beaten. Here are the blue 
skies and the green fields of our native Southland ; here our fathers 
sleep; and here cluster all our idols and our household gods, glorious 
with the light and the love of a lifetime; and when the Old Cavalry 
Division of General Marmaduke takes the field, our enemies will 
sternly find 

*'That Nottingham has archers good; 

And Yorshire men are stern of mood; 

Northumbrian prickers wild and rude. 

On Derby's hills the paths are steep; 

In Ouse and Tyne the fords are deep; 

And many a banner will be torn, 

And many a knight to earth be borne. 

And many a sheaf of arrows spent, 

'Ere Scotland's king shall cross the Trent." 

Into your hands, veterans of Springfield, Hartville, Prairie 
Grove and Helena, I surrender this standard. A lady made it; her 
prayers follow it; your General gave it; and you will defend it. And 
oh! amid the wreck and ruin of contending squadrons; the clash of 
raging steel, and the glare of maddened powder; the shout, the 
charge, the forlorn rally— where beauty and gloom go down together; 
the wild,tempestous shock of battle; the headlong rush of steed and 
steel, may God keep it pure and spotless as the grand old flag that 
waved o'er Sumter's battered walls. When the deadly war is over; 
when the red banners of strife have gleamed over the last foughten 
field, and paled beyond the sunset shore; when our glorious cause 
has risen beautiful from its urn of death and chamber of decay, with 
the eternal sunlight of land redeemed on its wings; and the white 
pinions of peace, like a brooding dove, are hovering about us, let 
the memories of this day go with you; let the affections of your 
hearts go with this old banner— all tattered and torn though it may 
be— and cling to it, and linger round it, like the dew on a summer 
hill. , , , 

In your name I thank the fair donor— in your name I thank our 
gallant General. 



168 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

CARRIER'S ADDRESS OF THE MISSOURI EXPOSITOR. 
January 1, 1861. 

[By John N. Edwards.] 

Time's tireless wicg has borne away 

The fond old year of yesterday ; 

Not crowned with flowers, as sweet June dies. 

Mid weeping stars and tender skies. 

And twilight fountains murmering by 

A sad and tender lullaby ; 

But as some grim old warrior falls. 

When foemen storm his castle walls. 

Let winter mourn the monarch dead, 

And heap his snow-drifts on his head — 

For all his farewell gifts were hers. 

The ermine robes, the frozen tears. 

The naked trees, and everything 

That woos and loves her rival, Spring. 

'Tis vain, perchance, and sad as vain, 

To call its memories back again ; 

Yet from without the silent past, 

Dark shadows o'er the heart are cast ; 

A happy home where death has been. 

To claim the fairest form within ; 

A tress of hair, but it's dimmed by years ; 

A tiny glove, but it's soiled by tears ; 

The little grave on the cold hill-side, 

That was made the morn the baby died, 

Mark all too well the ebb and flow 

Of joys and sorrows here below ; 

And the sky is dark, and the night is drear, 

God shield us now from the tempest here ! 

Great events are on the gale 

That soon may tell a darker tale ; 

And oh 1 it was a fearful sight 

To see the armies ranged for fight. 

Grim Lincoln led the Northern host. 

Imbued too strong with Seward's boast: 

That all the States must now be free, 

And curst r,he hydra, slavery. 

Yet still against his subtle art 

Came Breckinridge, with lion heart, 

Douglas' war-cry too was heard, 

And Bell's poor, threadbare rallying word. 

They close in conflict — loud and high 

Rang banner-shout and battle-cry. 

Some fought for fireside, home, and wife, 

Some fought for natural love of strife, 

And some, alas! for very hate 

Of all our memories, good and great. 

Yet still against the mighty North 

Breckinridge led on his own loved South ; 

And by hisf^ide was Yancey's crest, 

A cockade on his dauntless breast — 

With lance in rest and spur of fire 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 169 

He charged where burst the storm-cloud higher ; 

South Carolina's wave-kissed shore 

Sent back a proud, defiant roar ; 

And green Virginia's bosom rose 

In sorrow o'er her sisters' woes. 

In vain! in vain their strength and mightl 

In vain was Yancey's giant fight — 

Down went the fairest banner there, 

Hurled back the pious patriot's prayer ; 

And bafiied, routed, forced to yield, 

They slowly left the hated field. 

Where will it end? God only knows! 

Ask every Southern wind that blows; 

Ask armed men that meet by day. 

And swear to fling their lives away; 

Ask every lone star on high, 

That breathes the freedom of the sky; 

Ask every curse that goes to heaven, 

With hate and fury fiercely laden ; 

Ask South Carolina's bursting shock, 

And feel the Union reel and rock. 

As, with her lone flag in the sky. 

She bids it now a last good-bye. 

All is dreary, dire and dark — 

No ray of hope, no tiny spark 

To tell the watchers on the shore 

The ship of state is safe once more. 

Ah! see the grand old vessel quiver! 

How her timbers groan and shiver! 

Discord's lightnings flash around her. 

Burn the ropes and shrouds above her; 

Treason's bloated form is there; 

War's cruel sword is keen and bare; 

Ambition scales the dizzy mast. 

And gives a black flag to the blast. 

Helm aport ! hard — hard alee ! 

God! how deadly white the sea! 

Breakers! breakers! through the gloom 

Hear their solemn, sounding boom. 

Can you save her? Pilots, listen ! 

How the grim rocks gleam and glisten I 

Save her for our father's sake, 

Save her for the lives at stake, 

Save her for the precious freight, 

Save our glorious ship of state! 

Starry flag, float on, unfurled. 

The beacon of the wide, wide world. 

And bear for aye, o'er land and sea. 

The magic spell-word. Liberty! 

Cause on effect — fate's giant wing 
Is dark with terrors yet to bring, 
And every day but adds a leaf 
To destiny's sad book of grief. 
Scarce e'er the mockery had begun, 
To welcome England's monarch's son, 
A helpless mass of bleeding clay. 
The dying, butchered Walker lay. 



170 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

And Rudler pines where tropics shed 

A living poison on his head. 

Away! away! o'er leagues away! 

Italia's night is almost day. 

Hear the watchword — Como rings 

"With the melody it brings. 

Fight as brothers — let us die — 

Die beneath our own loved sky! 

Charge, then, heroes, do not waver. 

Charge once more, and then you save her. 

Charge with Freedom's battle-cry, 

Charge with Garibaldi ! 

Spain in torpor long had lain, 

Now starts to living life again; 

And Austria, wounded near to death, 

Is threatening, with her feeble breath. 

The garlands Solferino gave, 

May deck the first Napoleon's grave; 

But France needs other trophies now. 

To bind around her monarch's brow; 

A wild, grand shock where armies meet. 

Crowns and "kingdoms at her feet — 

A second Moscow's lurid glare 

Where England's Windsor towers fair; 

The cold, despotic Russian Czar 

Is brooding o'er Italian war. 

And now a low, deep, deadly cry. 

Is bursting out from Hungary. 

Let tyrants tremble — Freedom's star 

Is hung upon the verge of war, 

And but to gain it crowns will sink. 

Thrones totter on the fearful brink; 

Sacked cities swell with lurid breath, 

The reeking pestilence of death — 

Till God's eternal justice reigns. 

And blood wipes out the peasant's pains. 

When sick of foreign courts and places. 

Sick of titled heads and faces — 

Come gladly back to Lafayette, 

The gem of Missouri's coronet. 

Now where the velvet prairies gleam. 

With flowery robe and sparkling stream, 

The iron horse, with rapid flight 

Will wake the echoes of the night; 

And proudly toss its burning crest. 

In honor to the giant West. 

And where, beneath the grand, bright sun, 

Is fairer town than Lexington? 

God bless her commerce, trade and arts, 

God bless her generous people's hearts. 

And bless and crown her lovely girls 

With smiles of love, and waves of curls — 

Till every glance of merry light 

Will raise them up a chosen knight, 

Who'll swear by faith and tiny glove, 

Who'll break a lance for his lady-love! 

Thus, on the dawn of sixty-one, 



MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 171 

Its uutried journey just begun — 

I wish you health, and wealth, and joy, 

And gift besides for the Carrier Boy. 



MURDER DONE; OR, THE (GYPSY'S STORY. 

[By John N. Edwards.] 

(1870.) 

Months of sorrow and days of sin ; 
A life gone out as the knife went in. 
Hush ! The moon was too young to see. 
The shadows they fled aghast from me ; 
And a spirit wailed out from the open door : 
' A dead man lies on the chamber floor 1 " 

Evelyn Clare was debonair, 
Darkness dwelt in his dreamy hair — 
Dwelt, and dallied, and tangled in 
Much of sorrow and more of sin. 
Hush! The moon was behind a cloud — 
Hidden away as a corpse in a shroud : 
Hidden away, but it peered at me. 
Peered and grinned through the aspen tree ! 

Love' is ripe fruit ready to fall 

In the arms of the sunshine over the wall — 

So fleet to fall and die in a day, 

Its red gold ruined and kissed away. 

Isabel came with her peach-colored face, 

Ringlets ablow and her baby grace — 

Came and sighed and evil came after, 

And blood and tears in the wine of laughter — 

'Till Isabel's lips in moan go over 

All the languid lips of her lover. 

Evelyn Clare was a king, they said, 

Crowned with love from the heart to the head ; 

A pale-browed king to dabble about 

In seas of silks, and revel, and rout. 

With kisses for coin and ruined hair, 

A panther- king in his school-girl lair. 

Girt about with adorable things, 

Scented scarfs and talisman rings, 

Plentiful tresses shorn away 

From heads grown old and gray in a day. 

The air was a song and the song had a tune, , 

Meet for the mystical roses of June. 

The earth and the sky. and the sky and the air 

Were all in league with Evelyn Clare. 

He came and whispered : "My Gypsy maid, 

Give me a tangled lock to braid." 

To braid ! Oh, God ! if that were all— 

Hush ! can you hear the dead man fall ? 

I saw youth's crown on his Bacchanal crest, 
Isabel's face on his dreaming breast — 



172 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

A lily face with eyes in eclipse, 

Poppy dew on the venomous lips ; 

He stirred but once and the words came free 

" The Gypsy maid is nothing to me." 

Lost ! lost ! lost 1 
A beautiful soul is lost : 
A beautiful soul went down — down — 
Down like a ship at sea — 
Who knows if a soul be lost ? 
The moon went into a cave 

Whose stalactites were pointed with stars — 

With a scintillant crescent of stars, 
And a sweet south wind came over the rye 

And broke on the lattice bars. 

It was ten by the castle clock — 
Ten, and the night in bloom, 
With bud of stars and blossom of clouds. 

And the great rose of the moon. 
The arbor ivies coiled and clung 
To hear the accents of his tongue ; 
And Isabel for sounds to waft her 
Pleasure-boat had low-toned laughter — 
Laughter such as you seldom hear 
Under the moon by a dead man's bier. 

Hark ! Is that a step on the staircase there — 

Hushed in the light of the great knife bare ? 

Hark I to the bearded lips that tell : 

'* I love you, love you, Isabel !" 

He lay in the moon for the moon to keep 

Opiate wine for the drunkard sleep. 

He lay with arms flung wide apart. 

Weak fence for the guard of the lying heart. 

He lay like a lover taking his rest, 

The red in his cheeks and the dreams in his breast, 

The red in his cheeks and the wind in his hair, 

And Isabel's heart with Evelyn Clare. 

Mad ! Who's mad ? The Gypsy maid, 
Cast off, abandoned, and betrayed ? 
Mad ! Who's mad ? The Zingaree — 
The tropical plant from over the sea ? 
The poisonous flower stripped of its leaves. 
And bound in the wreath of his lily sheaves ? 
Avaunt ! pale moon, and send your cloud 
To rift me the rain of a lover's shroud! 

Pretty little Isabel, prim as any pink, 

Did you ever care about — did you ever think. 

Half a summer's afternoon of the suns that shine. 

Over lovers woed with steel — stabbed for kisses over 

wine? 
Waxen lady, Isabel, dainty lady lapped in white, 
Tawny Gypsies mingle dirges with the bridal's music 

night, 
Hark ! I hear the dancers dancing, hear the love-lorn 

light guitar, 



MISCELLANEOUS ^VRITINGS. 173 

Softer than a maiden's masses for her lover slain in war. 
Hark ! I hear the waltz's clarion filled with pulses 

fierce as wine, 
Lit by beauty's blessed beacons, starred by dusky eyes 

divine. 
Hark ! I hear the pleading prattle wafted from the lips 

of girls, 
Half their shoulders bare as swimmers, half their heads 

in bloom with curls, 
Hark ! I hear your Ev'lyn's voice rounding off its 

pliant lies. 
As the south wind strips the cloud-veil from the summer 

of the skies. 

I struck but once — struck hard ! 
The aspens bowed in the yard ; 
The moon was hid on valley and hill, 
The damp dews fell in the window sill. 
His lips moved once, oh, God ! to tell 
Death's broken talk to Isabel. 
The morn came up the broad oak stair. 
Wan as a childless mother at prayer — 
Came to the face of the stricken sleeper, 
And hid his lips for the lips of the weeper. 
Came and went, and the sun came after, 
Splashed with j^rold each beam and rafter ; 
Came breast high through the open door. 
And blessed the dead man on the floor. 

Ho ! good right hand, ye are red, ye are red ! 

And the soul of the lily-browned lover is fled. 

And lover and maid lie stark and still 

In a little green grave down under the hill ; 

And a curse to make the dead afraid 

Goes up to the sky on the Gypsy maid. 

The Gypsy maid whom Evelyn Clare 

Caught in a braid of Gypsy hair, 

Caught, and soared, and caged in glee, 

'Till she sung the songs learned over the sea. 

Sung, and rocked his cradle— a bier,— 

Sung, and dropped a venomous tear, — 

Sung, 'till the eyes went into eclipse, 

And death drank the dew of the bearded lips. 

The old owl up in the aspen tree. 

Spoke last night and glared at me. 

Spoke in a dreary undertone : 

' ' The dead — the dead — can the dead make moan ? " 

All last night I lay awake. 

The grass, moon-fler-ked as a spotted snake. 

Wove pallid hands that grasped in strife, 

A deathly dripping dagger-knife. 

And a luminous star from the midnight's crown. 

Suddenly shimmered and setllrd down, 

Half on the low grave under the hill, 

And half on the tinkling, tremulous rill. 

The dead came forth and dallied there, 

Isabel Lorn and Evelyn Clare. 

One arm lifted high above her, 



174 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

And one about her spectral lover. 

" Make moan ! " said the owl, cursed fate and death, 

'Twas a love that lived after fleeting breath. 

Here and there the lovers strayed, 

And laughed aloud at the Gypsy maid. 

I strangled his voice, but oh, God I 

I would I could strangle the moan. 
That rushes up from the silent sod 

When I walk with the midnight alone I 

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. 

LKansas City Times, 1872. J 

One of the most thrilling war lyrics in our language is known 
by this title. A quatrain has heen selected from it to serve as an 
inscription over the gates of the National Cemetery at Boston, in 
which the soldiers of Massachusetts are buried. It has probably 
been printed at sometime or other in every newspaper in the United 
States. I believe it has almost invariably been ?ym-printed, and the 
public is entitled to a correct copy. The occasion for which it was 
written was duplicated in the State Cemetery of Kentucky on the 
15th, and this poem was read over the remains of its author by a 
brother poet, Major Henry Stanton, who had access to original rec- 
ords that enabled him to verify the text. 

Soon after the Mexican War, Kentucky erected a noble monument 
to her dead soldiers, and when McKee and Clay and others of her he- 
roes who fell in the gorge of Buena Vista, were reinterred at its base, 
their comrades in arms, the brave and gifted Theodore O'Hara, wrote 
" The Bivouac of the Dead " as the poem of the occasion. Major 
Cary H. Fry, upon whom the command of the Second Kentucky 
Regiment devolved after the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel fell, 
was present when the poem was first read in public. On the 15th 
there was another great military and civic diplay on the same spot, 
and the same poem was read over the remains of O'Hara and Fry. 
In the war between the States they had served in opposing armies, 
but the State had their moldering coffins, with that of Adjutant 
Cardwell, brought from far distant graves to rest side by side with 
their comrades of the Mexican War. General Wm. C. Preston 
delivered the funeral eulogy, and we subjoin his sketch of the 
author, before introducing the poem : 

" Theodore O'Hara was a native of this county, the son of a 
father well known throughout the State for his accomplishments as 
a scholar and his worth as a citizen. Receiving a good classical 
education from his parent, O'Hara entered upon life blessed with 
an ardent mind, a handsome person, and a brave and generous char- 
acter. He soon became known to the public as an editor in the city 
of Louisville, where the easy grace and scholarly polish of his arti- 
cles soon attracted attention and placed him high in the favor of the 
Democratic party. He did not remain long in this pursuit, but war 
being declared against Mexico, he abandoned a profession in which 
he was rapidly acquiring distinction, and accepted a captain's com- 
mission in the army. His dashing character and poetic tem- 
perament made him popular in a service suited to his tastes and 
genius, and, sharing the dangers and the glory of our arms from 
Vera Cruz to Mexico, O'Hara remained in service until the termina- 
tion of the war. Not long after this period, O'Hara tvas one of 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 175 

those who landed with the force at Cardenas under General Lopez 
for the liberation of Cuba, when Crittenden, Logan and others per- 
ished, but he escaped with a few of the survivors. 

" When the recent war between the States commenced, O'Hara 
at once embraced the cause of the South, to whose principles he had 
always adhered, and became a staff ofhcer under General Brecken- 
ridge. In the Confederate armies O'Hara by his courage and serv- 
ices, attained the rank of colonel, and after the establishment of 
peace retired with a constitution impaired by the hardships of mili- 
tary life to the vicinity of Columbus, Ga., where he not long after- 
ward died. Having known Colonel O'Hara intimately, both in his 
campaigns in Mexico and in the South; having enjoyed the pleasures 
that his cultivated mind and genial temper gave to the camp-fire or 
the march; having witnessed his brilliant courage and quick discern- 
ment in battle; having seen him in the defiles of Mexico, by the side 
of Sidney Johnson in his dying momentsat Shiloh, and with Breck- 
enridge in his charge at Stone River, I here, in this solemn moment, 
can sincerely say that I believe no braver heart will rest beneath 
this consectrated sod, and no spirit more knightly or humane ever 
lingered under the shadow of yonder monument." 

The following is the correct text of "The Bivouac of the 
Dead :" 

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo ! 
No more on life's parade shall meet 

That t)rave and fallen feAv; 
On fame's eternal camping- ground 

Their silent tents are spread. 
And glory guards, with solemn round. 

The bivouac of the dead. 

No rumor of the foe's advance 

Now swells upon the wind. 
No troubled thought at midnight haunts 

Of loved ones left behind ; 
No vision of the morrow's strife 

The warrior's dream alarms, 
No braying horn nor screaming fife 

At dawn shall call to arms. 

Their shivered sAvords are red with rust, 

Their plumed head§ are bowed. 
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, 

Is now their martial shroud— 
And plenteous funeral tears have washed 

The red stains from each brow, 
And the proud forms, by battle gashed. 

Are free from anguish now. 

The neighing troop, the flashing blade. 

The bugle's stirring blast. 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade. 

The din and shout are past— 
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal. 

Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that ne\er more may feel 

The rapture of the tiglit. 

Like the fierce Northern hurricane 

That sweeps his great plateau. 
Flushed with the triumph yet' to gain 

Came down the serried foe— 
Who heard the thunder of the fray 

Break oer the field beneath. 
Know well the watch word of that day 

Was victory or death. 



176 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Full many a norther's breath has swept 

O'er Angostura's plain, 
And long the pitying sky has wept 

Above its molder'd slam. 
The raven's scream or eagle's flight, 

Or shepherd's pensive lay, 
Alone now wake each solemn height 

That frowned o'er that dead fray. 

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground! 

Ye must not slumber there, 
Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

Along the heedless air; 
Your own proud land's heroic soil 

Shall be your fitter grave; 
She claims from war its richest spoil— 

The ashes of her brave. 

Thus, 'neath their parent turf they rest; 

Far from the gory field. 
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast 

On many a bloody shield. 
The sunshine of their native sky 

Smiles sadly on them here. 
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by , 

The heroes' sepulchre. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted deadi , 

Dear as the blood ye gave; 
No Impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave; 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While fame her record keeps. 
Or honorpointsthe hallowed spot 

Where v alor proudly sleeps. 

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, 

In deathless song Shu 11 tell, 
When many a vanished year hath flown. 

The story how ye fell; 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight. 

Nor time's remorseless doom, 
Can dim one ray of holy light 

That gilds your glorious tomb. 

THE MARRIAGE OF PERE HYACINTHE. 

[Kansas City Timcs.'i 

This man, with a name like a flower, would lead a revolution. 
This French priest — charitable, amorous, poetical — would deal with 
an iron and austere thing like celibacy, and dismiss it as a thread- 
bare cassock or cowl. To prepare himself for the conflict, he has 
just married. From out the soft and mellowed light of his honey- 
moon, and from amid the ardent transports of his delicious life, he 
has written in favor of matrimony. Were this document nothing 
but a great, palpitating heart, its settings and adornments are com- 
plete. It is uxorious, roseate, sensuous, full of little sentences like 
a sigh — thick with images like his nights with kisses. 

If Hyacinthe was not a Frenchman, he would understand how 
fruitless the work which would seek to batter down a wall with 
an ostrich feather. If he had not mistaken vanity for inspiration, 
he would understand how hopeless the task of attackirg in the 
name of the church an ordinance interwoven with the very fibers of 
the church. Excommunicated, he yet aspires to the altar ; man- 
sworn, he yet clings to the odors of a former sanctity ; awake in the 
hush of his honeymoon nights, he yet hears in his memory the 
matin and the vesper bells of Rome; and happy in the arms and the 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 177 

smiles of his wife, he would yet be happy in the holy robes and 
vestments of his order. 

The last is impossible. Good Catholic he may be, and zealous 
in the cause of his God and his church, but a priest nevermore for 
ever. He has violated his vows of celibacy, he has lifted his hand 
against his faith, he has faltered in the presence of the enemy, and 
he has been cashiered and dismissed. It is well. The time has 
come when French sensationalism should receive a check. Cathol- 
icism has had quite enough of Lacordaire, Michelet, Kenan, Hya- 
cinthe, and Victor Hugo. Ctesar's prayer was pitiful, but it was full 
of prophecy: '*0h! God, if Rome is to be cursed, curse her not with 
old men in her extremity." And if the church of Paris could cry 
out it would be in thunder tones against the deadly reign of materi- 
alism falsely called science; of sensationalism; of a philosophy so 
servile as to become infidelity; of that furious yearning and striving 
after impossible and invisible things; of the poets who coin their 
genius into satire that religion maybe wounded; of authors who 
deny the Christ that miracles maybe lampooned; and of priests 
like Hyacinihe who, to win popular applause, wear the cassock to-day 
and the masquerade dress to-morrow. 

Let the iron creed and discipline of the church pass over them 
all. Brilliant Hyacinthe believed himself a Mahomet, but in lieu 
of the scimetar he carried an orange blossom. In the early years 
of his priesthood, and when all Paris came to his ministrations at 
Notre Dame, the rustle of a silken gown affrighted, and the flash 
of a black eye drove him beyond the bright line of the chandelier's 
light. Now how changed. Bitten by the tarantula of sensation- 
alism, the man who only had his voice, his beautiful white hands, 
his wonderful rhetoric, French and staccato, his eyes that were 
violet at times and at times dreamy or brown — this man, adored of 
the women, and watched from afar by grisettes and dames of grand 
degree, turned upon Rome because he could make a pretty parable, 
and demanded of Rome a thing that Rome would not give even to 
Rome itself, Baffled, he rebelled. New York received him in 
finished New York fashion, and for a month he was a lion. Some 
Yankees, shrewder than others were, flattered him with a future 
filled by an American Pope, and painted for him a spiritual empire 
as grand as the continent. Having embraced one lust, he dallied 
with another, and for long days he staggered upon the edge of the 
pit that had been dug for him. He did not fall in, but he did not 
repent, and so he returned to Europe to marry, and to continue his 
absurd and ridiculous issue with the church. 

Luther led a revolution ; Hyacinthe wages an emeute. Between 
a revolution and an emew^g there is this difference; the first comes 
from the masses, the last from the passions; the first destroys, pulls 
down, obliterates, but it builds up, re-creates and re establishes; the 
last consumes, demolishes, stagnates, dies; the first commits great 
crimes that good may follow; the last commits the same that 
bad may follow. Luther married and went on to a warfare that 
was audacious and gigantic; Hyacinthe marries and only marries. 
Beyond this he claims to be all that he ever promised to be when he 
took his vows — the same in faith, in belief, in creed and in doc- 
trine. Poor Frenchman, not to know that in breaking one vow 
he broke them all, and that, should the days of Methuselah be his, 
he can never more be received in the bosom of that church he has 
forsaken for the white arms and the scented hair of his beloved. 



17S JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

NAPOLEON AND HIS DETRACTORS. 

[Kansas City Timcf<, August 10, 1888.] 

This is the title of a book written ])y Prince Napoleon, which is 
just now getting well under fire in England. If it has been trans- 
lated and reprinted in this country it is well; if it has not been so 
done the sooner it is done the better — all of which means that the 
sooner it is done the sooner will some publishing house put a pile of 
money into its pocket. 

The animus against this publication, on the part of the London 
Illustrated News is that it touches up strong points that are facile 
and leaves untouched other points which are still more facile and 
still more unassailable. 

Let us look into this question a little bit. The JVews says that he 
disposes in a most masterly manner of Bourienne, Madame de 
Remusat, Miot de Melito, the Abbe de Pradt and Prince Metternich, 
and then adds — we quote it literally: " But what is to be said of a 
champion who enters and quits these particular lists without ventur- 
ing to touch the shield of M Lanfrey?" 

The shield of M. Lanfrey! Angels and ministers of grace, 
defend us; why not say the shield of Sir Walter Scott? The last 
wrote to be a baronet. He prostituted his splendid genius to pull 
down a man who, in his Scottish heart of hearts he must have 
adored, and wiio — in so many elements of his character — must have 
been near of kin to all those heroes who stood out like men of iron 
from the pages of " Marmion," the " Lady of the Lake," " Rokeby" 
and the " Lord of the Isles." 

Lanfrey! One approaches him as one might well approach a 
snake. Did he attack the genius of Napoleon as a soldier? he 
could not. Did he attack his campaigns, where every capital was 
an outpost and every sovereign a mere cup-bearer? he could not. 
Did he attack his capacity as a lawgiver, wherein he wrote like Tac- 
itus and collated like Justinian? he could not. What, then, did he 
do? He wrote so that the Bourbons might give him the gewgaw of 
a ribbon and the grimcrack of a decoration. He wrote of Napoleon's 
private life; of his supposed lusts and his supposed love affairs; of 
My Lord Petulancy and My Lord Impatience; of how he took ten 
minutes to dinner and ten hours to his studies; of how he had shot 
Palm, a bookseller, and d'Enghien, a prince; of how he made gren- 
adiers out of stable grooms and marshals of France out of men who 
had bled horses. Poor babbler! Mme. de Remusat could have done 
better than that. Her grievance was that groping one night — cer- 
tainly en dishabille — to find Napoleon's chamber she stumbled across 
Roustem, the Arab, swart, wide awake and lying prone across the 
threshold. She fled, shrieking, just as the tawny hand of the east 
clutched at the white garments of western civilization. From that 
liour Madame de Remusat looked upon Napoleon as an ogre. If 
they had embraced, perhaps she would have looked upon him as an 
angel. Who knows? When Don Juan found Miss Fitz Fulke at 
the end of the corridor, whatever else happened, no skeleton has 
ever yet outlined itself to prove Miss Blue Stocking right, or to prove 
the propriety of putting a spray or two of lilacs on the grave where 
Miss Prim Propriety lies buried. Lanfrey Remusat! While attack- 
ing Napoleon for the large embraces that happened in his God-ap- 
pointed career, contemporaneous history has perhaps forgotten that 
Lanfrey was a Bourbon sneak and Madame a baffled lady of the bed 
chamber. 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 179 

The News makes other points which we desire especially to refer 
to. It admits everything as connected with Napoleon's _ military 
genius, but it qualifies everything because the military side of his 
character does not comport with his moral side. In proof of this 
he cites several instances. Perhaps the most salient is this one 
wherein he refers to the author of the book : 

Nor has he a word to bestow on such a wretched business as 
his uncle's legacy to Cantillon, the French officer who was tried for 
an attempt on the life of the Duke of Wellington — perhaps the most 
hopelessly ignoble bequest which has ever found its way into any 
testamentary document on record. 

We challenge the record to prove that Napoleon ever left a 
legacy to Cantillon because he proposed to assassinate the Duke of 
Wellington. He denied it. Every instinct and action of his whole 
life proved it to be a lie. Of course it is easy to enclose in the last 
will and testament of such a man as Bonaparte, administered upon 
by the Bourbons, the final development of a thousand daggers; but 
all such stuff as this, and all such stuff as the Wellington assassin- 
ation is bogus. 

Per contra. When the dead body of George Cadoudal was 
searched he had on his person a hundred and some odd sovereigns 
of British money. When Luttrel was grabbed with more British 
gold on his person, and a bale or two of incendiary proclamations 
ready to be issued out of hand, he was not shot but set free. The 
whole career of Napoleon was merciful to such a degree that every 
unbiased historian has taken notice of it. We do not discuss these 
moral aspects of Bonaparte's character. We only contend against 
the proposition that the Neics sets up, that he must be judged by his 
moral example — that is to say, whether he kissed a woman more or 
less, whether he pardoned a criminal more or less, or whether he 
bore himself circumspectly more or less. 

Nothing of Lodi ! Nothing of the Pyramids ! Nothing of Mon- 
tenotte! Nothing of Areola! Nothing of Marengo! Nothing of 
the transfiguration — one half inspiration and the other half endow- 
ment — where the corporal became emperor. 

The Neios does not even skim the surface. It sums up every- 
thing, but it does not deliver. 



180 



JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 



THE BEST ONE HUNDRED BOOKS. 

A RECENT LIST ARRAKGED BY MAJOR J. N, EDWARDS. 

[Kansas City Times, April 7th, 1889. 



The Bible. 

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire. 

Hume's History of England. 

Thiers' French Revolution. 

Thitrs' Consulate and Empire; 
Laraartine. 

History of the Girondists. 

Michelet's Roman Republic. 

Mommsen's Rome. 

Les Miserables. 

Shakespeare, with Lear, first of all 
his plays. 

Voltaire's Loviis XIV. 

Voltaire's Charles XII. 

Prescott's Mexico and Ferdinand 
and Isabella. 

Charles V and Philip II, 

Motley's Rise of the Dutch Repub- 
lic ; United Netherlands, and John 
of Barneveld. 

Guizot's History of France. 

Macaulay's History of England ; 
his Essays and his Lays. 

Lamartine's History of Turkey. 

Hugo's Ninety-Three. 

Hugo's Toiler's of the Sea. 

Grammont's Memoirs. 

Louvet's Chevalier de Faublas 
O'Mera's Voice from St. Helena. 

Montholon's Memoirs. 

Scott's Ivanhoe, the Lady of the 
Lake, Marmion and Lord of the Isles. 

Rossetti's Poems. 

Swineburne's Laus Veneris. 

Irving's life of Washington and 
his Fall of Grenada. 

Rollin's Ancient History. 

Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo and 
Three Guardsmen. 

Wandering Jew. 

Burke's Lives of the Popes. 

Hildreth's History of the United 
States. 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

Napier's Peninsula War. 



Josephus. 

Fi-oude's Julius Ca?zar. 

Tactitus— what can be gotten of 
him. 

Soutonius— as fragmentary as it 
is. 

Memoirs of Baron Besenval. 

Carlyle's French Revolution and 
Frederick the Great. 

Tennyson's Poems as a Whole. 

Kinglake's Crimean War. 

Cooper's five stories, known as 
the Pathfinder Series. 

Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. 

The Koran. 

Plutarch's Lives. 

Ct\?zar Commentaries. 

Jomin's Campaigns of Napoleon, 
also his Art of War. 

Thackeray's Georges. 

Buiwer's Strange Story and What 
Will He Do With It? 
Dickens' Mutual Friend and Bleak 
House. 

Lawrence's Guy Livingstone and 
Barren Honour. 

What is left of Li vy. 

Napoleon's War Maxims. 

Xenophon's Anabasis. 

The Iliad. 

Smith's Wealth of Nations. 

Hazlitt's Life of Napoleon. 

Memoirs of the Duchess Abrantes. 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 

Byron's Poems. 

Knight's History of England. 

Charles O'Malley and Tom Burke 
of Ours. 

Davis's Poems, The Irish Patriot. 

Southey's Life of Nelson. 

Orators of France. 

Democracy in America. 

Chesney's Military Biographies. 

Life of Marion. 

Antommarchi Autopsy on Napo- 
leon. 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES 

TO 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS 



" A man there came — whence none could tell — 

Bearing a touchstone in his hand, 
And by its unerring spell 

Tested all things in the land. 
Quick birth to transmutation smote. 

The fair to foul — the foul to fair — 
Purple nor ermine did he spare, 

Nor scorn the dusky coat." 
If the west ever produced a man who got at the heart 
of things, that man was John Edwards. If it has ever 
produced a man of purely chivalric spirit, of high courage 
and noble endeavor, a man who knew and loved truth and 
honor and uprightness and manly bearing, who hated 
shams and pretense and cant and low cunning, that man 
was John Edwards. It made no difference how cunning, 
how deep the deception, how thick the veneering, he went 
to the core; and it made no difference how rude and rugged 
and moss-grown the rock, he found the diamond, and found 
it at the first stroke of his pick. '^Ile was a good judge of 
a man/^ Made by his early education and association 
somewhat provincial, yet he wrote *^Bon Voyage, Miss 
Nellie,^'' and no native born New Englander with a tra- 
ditional Mayflower ancestry hiid so pure and high a tri- 
bute on the grave of Henry Ward Beecljer. No, he 
ceased to be provincial save when as a partisan he was 
*'in the saddle and moving things." A born soldier, he 
knew intuitively when he was in an impregnable position 
and rested himself, caught at a glance the seam in his 
opponent's armor, and in a trice his sword-point was 

181 



182 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

through it. He was '''quick to hear the clarion call, the 
war steed^s neigh, the brave man^s battle cry'^ ; and when 
the call to the rescue came, when battle had to be made, 
his voice was heard clearest and loudest, and at the front. 
But, molded on the heroic type, life to him was always 
heroic; and if disaster followed, if the battle had been 
waged and lost, if defeat had come to high courage, if 
death had laid his hand on a man, or sorrow had so much 
as touched him with her finger, though an enemy, then no 
hand was laid more gently on the wound than his, no sad- 
der dirge was wailed over lolanthe's bier, and no cooing 
mother ever crooned a sweeter song to soothe her fretted 
babe. 

Dying in the prime of manhood, his life so full, was yet 
well rounded and complete. The concentration or fixed- 
ness of purpose that ever goes hand in hand with genius, 
was always well upon him, and carried him out beyond 
the minor affairs of life. Great men have great thoughts 
and great purposes, and deal only with great things, and 
John Edwards was a great man. It was of little moment 
to him whether his own or his friend^s garners were full, 
but it was a matter of great moment to him whether the 
outlook for food for next year was equal to the needs of 
the human race. The broils of the neighborhood did not 
attract him; but with the eye of a seer he watched night 
and day the movements on the chess-board of Europe; for 
his own personal salvation he cared little, but for the sal- 
vation of the world, of whatever brotherhood or creed, he 
would have offered up his own life. With his broad liber- 
ality he sacrificed personal gain to the public weal, buried 
his animosities for the good of his cause, and buried his 
cause for the good of his race. And yet this man, with the 
burden of a mission on his shoulders, who led in the for- 
lorn hope, who was full of the wisdom and traditions of a 
classic and heroic past, who dealt hard blows with his 
sword, and wrote hard words with his pen, was as simple 
and modest as a young girl, depreciating his own efforts 
and blushing to hear himself praised. In a provincial 
town, there lived and died a woman who had barely reached 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 183 

middle life. Standing by her grave, one was struck by the 
looks of surprise on the faces of those who had gathered 
to perform the last sad rites. There were Jew and Gen- 
tile, saint and sinner, the rich and the poor, the literary 
club and the unlettered serving woman, the frocked priest 
and non-conformist clergyman, the townspeople in coupes 
and the country folk in carts, and each creed and class was 
surprised to see the other, for each thought she belonged to 
itself. She belonged to none singly, but to all. The in- 
scription on a little monument near the battle field of 
Camden came to mind: "To the memory of the noble 
Baron De Kalb, born in Germany, but a citizen of the 
world." And around the memory of Major Edwards has 
again gathered the motley throng — the Jew and the Gen- 
tile, the saint and the sinner, the rich and the poor, the 
literati and the unlettered laborer, the frocked priest and 
the non-conformist, the politician and the voter, the 
townspeople in their coupes and the country men in their 
carts, the civilian and the soldier, and each class and creed 
is surprised to see the others, and each avers that he be- 
longs to itself; and yet he belonged to no race or class or 
creed or country, but to all, for he was a ''citizen of the 
world." And as each lays his tribute down, it is but the 
tribute to a single side of this many-sided man. 

Those who have read ''Shelby and his Men," who had 
followed the career of Major Edwards from 1862 through 
the varied fortunes of the southern arms, until 1865, when 
all hope was gone, and he and General Shelby, with a band 
of chosen and faithful followers, pressed their way south- 
ward, swam the Rio Grande with their sabers between 
their teeth and a repeater in either hand, and laid their 
swords at the feet of the noble but ill-starred Maximilian 
in the halls of the Montezumas, imagined him to be a 
giant in stature. Years after, when that most eccentric 
and phenomenal character, Henry Clay Dean, was on a 
hurried visit to Kansas City, with but an hour to spare, 
he called at the Times office for the author of " Poor Car^ 
lotta." When a stripling was presented to him, he was so 
overwhelmed that he dropped his valise and sat down. Uo 



1-4 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

staid three days, and laid the foundation of an attachment 
that only death severed. In some respects this ponderous 
man and the stripling were alike. Both knew how to love 
and how to hate; both were classic in their tastes — Dean 
being not only, as Edwards was, an elegant and forcible 
writer, but also a finished and powerful orator, which 
Edwards was not. Both were poets, although neither ever 
penned a rhyme, and both belonged to another age, or 
rather were exponents of a civilization that has passed. 
The fact that nature reproduces herself is well attested. 
The child of to-day resembles no living relative, but the 
picture-gallery reveals its prototype. Is the Past not jealous 
of the Present? Is she not afraid of oblivion? And does 
she not send forward, from time to time, a champion of 
her sacred rites and customs? Such men are among us 
but not of us. Young though they be, we pay them the 
reverence and respect that is due to age. They are some- 
times called, for want of a better term, reactionists; but 
they are the true conservative element of the times in which 
they live. The past is known to them; but the future, 
save as guaged by the past, is a sealed book. John Edwards 
was such a man. These men discover no new continents, 
make no revolutions, scan innovations warily, place the 
brake on the wheels of progress until it is toned down in 
harmony with precedent, and look askance at the approach- 
ing stranger; but with things that have been they are 
en rapport. In an inconstant present they are the faithful 
custodians of " the sacred things — the protecting statutes 
and the sacred fires." They are no John the Baptists, 
proclaiming a new era, but Aarons, faithful to their charge 
of keeping the fires burning on the altars and keeping 
pure the records of the dead. They know nothing of barter 
or trade or of commerce, and demand all things of all men 
for the common weal. Their lives are heroic lives, and 
there is not a chronicle of valor, of sacrifice, of 
stout endeavor, of manly daring, of patient waiting, that 
is not at their fingers' ends; nor a ballad of love or war 
that is not familiar to their ears. With the gross and 
earthly they have nothing in common, but with love, with 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 185 

devotion, with honor, with sacrifice, their hearts beat in 
unison. They do not love D^Aramis, the shrewd, recalci- 
trant priest; but Athos, the chivalric, the gentle man of 
honor, the pure nobleman; Porthos, the burly Porthos, 
with his lumbering gait, his loud voice, and his ponderous 
fist, and his huge shoulders that held up the arch of stone 
to his own undoing; and D^Artagnan, the wild, royster- 
ing, loyal " fighting sword blade/^ Ah! these are men of 
their kidney. Such men emancipate their heroes of their 
day, and habilitate them in the forms of the past. If 
John Edwards sometimes glorified men that we all could 
not glorify, it was no fault of his. Such deeds and valor 
as he sang in poetry and song, Sir Walter Scott sang in 
poetry and song, and Victor Hugo sang in poetry and 
song, and Alexander Dumas sang in poetry and song. If 
some of these men interrupted traffic and failed to be 
conventional as to the rights of holding certain trusts, 
Ich Van Dor, Eobin Hood, and other favorite heroes o^ 
ours, created the same social disturbances in their day and 
generation; yet they are none the less heroes to us; more, 
these men had once been his followers and comrades in 
scenes and hours that he so graphically paints in his 
loving tribute to George Winship: *'By lonesome road- 
sides, in the thickets at night, when the weird laughter of 
the owl was as the voice of the fabled choosers of the 
slain, crying out unto voice the roll of the dead, who were 
to die on the morrow for Grod and the confederacy; in the 
hot lit foreground of many a stormy battle-day, men's 
lives falling off from either flank of it like snow; in many 
a lonesome bivouac, when winter and hunger, as twin 
furies of civil war, flew over the sleeping camp together; 
in many a desperate border raid, where the wounded had 
no succor and the dead no sepulchre; in far off and half- 
forgotten foreign lands, where the flag that floated above 
them was a blacH: flag, and the comrades, who broke their 
bread and shared their blankets, knew nothing of their 
name, their speech, their life, their race, their creed, their 
country."" To a man of his temperament, this was a 
baptism of fire and a consecration to brotherhood that 



IQQ JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

only death could dissolve. Men who followed him 
through such hours as these were as much his brothers as 
if they had been taken from his own mother's womb. 
Was the author of '' Poor Oarlotta" a poet? Of the very 
highest type; a poet without effort and without knowing 
that he was a poet. It has been repeatedly said that 
Victor Hugo was his model. This is doubtful. While he 
is terse, pointed, and rapid, after the style of Hugo, yet 
this is due more to the nature and manner of the man 
himself than to an effort to copy. Major Edwards was 
not a robust man, physically, was of a highly nervous 
organization, and his quick, pithy, pointed style was 
unavoidable. For a man of his physique and few years 
he did an immense amount of work, and work of the kind 
that he did may not mean effort, but it meant high 
tension, and high tension means exhaustion, and 
exhaustion means, if a man goes on, ^' The silver thread 
be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be 
broken at the fountain; or the wheel be broken at the 
cistern."" 

To what a region of elevation he lifts one, and at a 
bound — an optimist of the purest type. He had his dark 
and dreary hours when life sat heavily upon him; but gen- 
erally the sun Avas shining, and the birds were singing in 
the trees, and the flowers were in blooni. If he wrote of 
battlements and turrets, and waving banners and horse- 
men in armor and sword and buckler, the sun always 
illumed the turrets and reflected itself back from the 
burnished shields and gleaming sword-blades. How he 
loved the beautiful and the bright and the grand; and 
rapidly passed before his eyes visions of noble men and 
stately dames, strong castles, and fair women, and tall 
knights with clanking swords, and '^all quality, pride, 
pomp and circumstance of glorious war." In the close of 
his tribute to young Winship, hoAV nearly he foretold his 
own taking off: ''That pitiless disease which neither 
stayed nor sorrowed a moment in its work, which knew 
nothing of the splendid past of the gentle young hero, 
which counted for naught the five precious scars on his 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 187 

poor, wasted body, which would not lengthen his life a 
single hour by receiving in propitiation all the days he had 
marched without food, and all the nights he slept without 
blankets, and so it seized him as he stood grave and brave 
and calm to the last and carried him away to where the 
dark ?" Eead in the answer the simple confession of 
faith, not strictly orthodox from the point of the 
^'straighest sect,'-' but still a confession solacing to the 
friends who knew and loved him, a confession that any 
noble woman or brave man may repeat and which will 
remain an ever-blooming flower upon his grave. *'Ah, 
no ! Sincerity must be religion. Over beyond the river 
called Jordan there must be growing trees, and running 
rivers, and fragrant fields, called the sweet fields of Eden 
for all who on this side the sunset shore fought or bled or 
died for king or cause or creed or country. Heroism is 
a consecration to God, and death because of it but a going 
to God. Over there surely the soldier is gently dealt 
with. If he was brave in life, and noble and courteous 
and generous and merciful, he had the attributes which 
certainly could make a heaven, and, therefore, this one 
dead to-day and buried within the historic soil of Jackson 
was foreordained to happiness after death. It may be late 
in coming; the bivouac may be right cold and dreary for 
many a one yet who has to pass through the valley of the 
shadow and over the river called death; and after the 
night the morning, and after the judgment day the New 
Jerusalem." 

Brummell Joi^ES. 

From HON. SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 

House of Representatives U. S. ) 
Washington, D. C, May 12, 1889. j 

Colonel Munford: 

My Dear- Sir — Permit me to express to you my 
sincere sorrow at the sudden death of J. N. Edwards. He 
was a warm and true friend of mine, and I tried to be his 
whenever occasion offered. His excellent judgment and 



18g JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

splendid mental accomplishments are a loss which, in 
common with the good people of Missouri, I deeply deplore. 
Yours truly, 

Samuel J. Eandall. 

From A FEDERAL SOLDIER. 

Las Oruces, N. M., June 1, 1889. 
Dr. Morrison" Munford: 

My Dear Sir — Since talking with you I was suddenly 
called here by telegram, and may not return to Kansas 
City for several days yet. Thinking perhaps Mrs. 
Edwards might desire the ^^New Year,^' the wondrously 
beautiful creation of Major Edwards, of which I spoke to 
you before my return, I inclose it herewith. You will 
have to handle it carefully, as I have carried it with me 
over many miles of weary travel, and for many long years. 
I have read it to many men — to friendsand strangers, — and 
it always excites unbounded admiration. It is a shortlittle 
piece, takes but little space, but I know of no living man 
who could write it or speak it as an original production. 
Nor does my reading tell me of any of the dead who conld 
write such an article but John N. Edwards and Victor 
Hugo. 

I loved Edwards before I had ever seen him, just from 
reading his wonderful productions, and after seeing him 
and becoming acquainted with him I only loved him 
more intensely. May God bless his wife and children and 
raise up kindly friends to love and care for and protect 
them. Very sincerely yours, 

James K. Waddill. 

GENERAL SHELBY'S TRIBUTE. 

Butler, Mo., May 7, 1889. 
General Jo Shelby was found by the Times' corre- 
spondent at his home, eighteen miles northwest of here, 
to-day. '' The news of Major Edward's death was a great 
shock to me," said the General. ''I have known him 
and loved him since he was a boy. It is hardly within 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 189 

the power of language to" portray or describe Major 
Edwards as his noble character merits. God never 
created a more noble, magnanimous, and truer man than 
John N. Edwards. When the war broke out he threw 
himself into the conflict with all the ardor of his warm 
nature, and during the long, bloody struggle, he was ever 
loyally devoted to the cause he championed. 

The following is from General J. C. Jamison, late 
Adjutant-General of the State : 

Guthrie, Ind. Ter., May 7,1889. 
Dr. Morrison" Mukford : 

Mi/ Dear Doctor — The saddest thing I ever read in 
your great newspaper was the death of my beloved friend, 
Major John N. Edwards. No death ever fell with such 
poignant grief or affected me so deeply as his. I first 
knew him when the fortunes of war threw us together 
in the same prison at Johnson's Island, in 1863. The 
friendship there formed only grew stronger as time 
went on, and only a few weeks ago, in Jefferson City, 
we spent an afternoon reviewing the past and discussing 
the future. He possessed a heart big enough to take 
in the whole of humanity, and this problem was often 
the theme of discussion. His generosity was only 
bounded by his ability to minister to the unfortunate. 
His was the most lovable character I ever knew. 
His heroism in times of danger was absolutely the 
sublimest thing I ever saw. He seemed to lose his per- 
sonal identity as the danger grew more imminent, and 
only thought of the safety of his men and his beloved 
commander. But I did not start out to write of his 
personal traits of character, but to say that I had the 
honor, as the editor of the Clarksville (Mo.) Se^itmel^ to 
publish the first, and, I believe, the only real story ever 
written by him — entitled '^ Guy Lancaster, '^ the scene 
being laid in Virginia. This romance was published in 
1867, 1868, 1869, and the papers containing it are bound 
in book-form, and are in my library at Jefferson City. 
May the clods rest lightly over the body of our friend. 

J. C. Jamison. 



190 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

From JUDGE WILLIA3I YOUNO, OF LEXINGTON. 

When affairs are moving along their usual course 
within well-marked boundaries, and the spectacle of life 
is made up of the commonplace, struggles of men for 
money, place and power ; when no great issue presents its 
uncompromising front ; when public matters lie quiet 
under the ferment of individual interests ; when the steady 
grind of greed is going on, then men take value and 
become important in projoortion to the sum of their accumu- 
lations. But let there come a shock ; let all the lines be 
broken, and the plain boundaries be destroyed ; let a crisis 
approach, and danger threaten ; let affairs present a prob- 
lem that can not be solved by the ordinary rules of action; 
let dread and doubt and uncertainty prevail, and then it is 
that men are rated for themselves alone, and borrow no 
value from mere possessions. In such times, there are 
men toward whom all eyes are turned in expectancy, and 
to catch the sound of whose voices all ears are strained. 
Not because they are always correct, or to be implicitly 
followed ; not because of supernatural wisdom, or unerring 
judgment, but because of their clear convictions of right, 
their supreme unselfishness, their complete fearlessness, 
their absolute sincerity, their hatred of shams, and their 
unfailing faithfulness. 

There was erstAvhile one such man in Missouri who is 
now no more. There was one such voice that is silent 
now. John N. Edwards is dead ! 

Imbued with passions hot and strong, gifted with a 
fiery and heroic genius, endowed with dauntless courage, 
yet tempered all by a most generous disposition and the 
tenderest of hearts, he was a rare man, whose like we shall 
scarcely see again. 

Coming up into manhood on the eve of a mighty revo- 
lution, his high spirit reveled in the political excitement 
of the times, when words were things, and every act of 
vital consequence, and method of expression never lost the 
glow caught from the fires of insurrection and war. 

This most romantic and chivalrous of souls was placed 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 191 

by fortune in tlie very position that enabled him to see 
and know more of the romantic realities of the war than 
perhaps any man now living in Missouri. 

As the companion of Shelby, during all the while that 
phenomenal cavalryman was rising from the rank of cap- 
tain to that of major-general, he was an active participant 
in all of the thrilling scenes enacted then. 

The secrets of nearly every one of the daring expedi- 
tions from that part of the Confederate forces were con- 
fided to him. His council was sought, and his assistance 
invoked on the eve of every wild scheme of reprisal, or 
about all of those enterprises that depended for success on 
the personal bravery of the participants. He was the 
trusted confidant of every reckless, desperate, restless 
spirit that sought danger in the front, by charge, or arti- 
fice, or strategem; or that waged the mad, wild war of 
personal hate far in the lines of the enemy. His was a 
nature that invited confidence. He was burdened with 
more vital secrets affecting the credit, life, and honor of 
others than any other man perhaps in all of the land. In 
it all, how truly, purely, perfectly faithful he was. 

Such a life, with such a nature, could not fail to pro- 
duce a rare combination — a strange blending of contra- 
dictory characteristics. 

Inured to scenes of carnage, and realizing from experi- 
ence how great the sacrifices necessary to victory, and how 
sternly regardless of individuals he must be who would 
conquer, in the height of his absorbing devotion to the 
cause he espoused, he called, with clarion voice and smok- 
ing pen, upon the leaders of his cause for the most extraor- 
dinary, heroic, and relentless policy; but for all this he 
himself would have lost the most important battle, or 
yielded the fruits of the greatest victory, before he would 
have trampled upon the prostrate form of a brave but help- 
less and unresisting foe. An enthusiast in politics, and 
the advocate of the severest party discipline, amounting 
to the utter ostracism of the delinquents, yet all was 
excused, and all condoned by the slightest extenuating 
circumstance or at the first intimation of regret. 



193 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Ambitious to an unwonted degree, he sought noposition, 
held back by his exquisite consideration for some friend 
whose cause he was always ready to espouse with a per- 
fectly unselfish devotion. 

Detesting the falseness and meanness and sordidness of 
humanity, he was wont to lash and scourge it with almost 
frenzied indignation and disgust, and yet he loved all man- 
kind, one by one. 

There were none high enough to excite his envy or 
command his adulation, so there were none so low as to 
escape his sympathy. 

His friendship was marvelously true. It was the rul- 
ing trait of his character. Especially was this the case 
with those who had been with him in the stirring scenes 
of war. His devotion to these became a part of his being, 
and neither poverty, nor disgrace, nor crime even, could 
separate his regard from them. He found an excuse for 
all of their faults, and served them with untiring faithful- 
ness through all circumstances. 

With him to be once a friend Avas to oe always such, 
and to him the voice of distressed friendship was as the 
voice of God. 

It was as a newspaper writer that the public knew him 
best, and in this capacity he held a place second to none 
in Missouri in influence. 

Whenever he wrote, and on whatever subject, his mind 
seemed crowded with poetical figures and apt illustra- 
tions, mostly of a heroic cast, suggested by his experience 
as a soldier, or drawn from the thrilling records of chiv- 
alry. The most trivial incident, apparently, assumed at 
times to his many-sided mind an aspect of momentous 
importance, and, under his wonderful word-painting, took 
on such colors as to attract the eyes of the nation. 

But it was upon the happening of some great calamity, 
or the occurrence of some incident of unusual impor- 
tance, or the approach of a political crisis, and especially 
an appearance of a wavering in the ranks of his party, 
that his heroic genius shone out in full splendor. Then 
it was thatj with a pen tipped as it were with fire, he wrote 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 193 

words that burned into the hearts of his readers; then it 
was that the lightning of his genius flashed out and lit up 
the whole social or political horizon, and the reverberating 
thunder of his utterances startled the sleeper and the 
unconcerned. 

On every occasion of unusual popular interest, for the 
last twenty years or more, while agitation and dissention 
was going on over some proposed action, his earnest, manly 
sentiments were the inspiration of many a worker, and his 
sublime courage gave confidence to many a doubter. 

But it was when argument and counsel had culminated 
on some decisive action, and an appeal made to the coun- 
try for a verdict thereon, that his rallying cry was most 
eagerly listened for. 

In all of this time there has been no crisis in the 
affairs of his party, whether arising from internal dissen- 
tions, political defection, or rival strength, that every Dem- 
ocrat in this section has not hastened to read what he might 
write upon the subject. This was not on account of a 
belief in his infallible judgement, although he was quick 
to discern and just to discriminate. It wasnot on account 
of implicit confidence in his vast political wisdom, although 
he had an intuitive knowledge of men and a genius for 
politics. It was not on account of his splendid periods 
and fervid bursts of eloquence, although in these he had 
scarcely a rival. It was because friend and foe alike 
knew that his was the expression of a fearless, true, incor- 
ruptible man ; that, however mistaken, he believed as he 
wrote, with all his heart and mind, with a belief as sub-, 
lime as his courage. He might not solve the problem, 
but he always exposed the difficulty. His passions or 
affections might cause him to err in position, but he 
always struck to the point, and no hero or chivalry ever 
pointed his lance with truer aim at the center of his 
enemy's shield than did he. No paladin in battle ever 
charged with less regard for consequences to himself than 
did this Murat of Missouri journalism on the political 
field. 

His influence over thousands in Missouri and else- 



194 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

where was unbounded. There were, and are, many who 
not only listened eagerly for his voice, but, having heard it, 
all controversy with them was at an end. 

Over many who had no personal acquaintance with 
him this influence of his was exerted. 

It was not his eloquence, or his fire, or his courage 
that captivated them. It was a something running through 
all that he did or said; that looked out of his eyes, that 
sounded in his voice, that appeared between the lines of 
all he ever wrote. It was as imperceptible as a spirit to 
the common eye, but making its presence felt upon kin- 
dred spirits. It was that, back of genius and education 
and culture, vitalizing and inspiring all, there was, as the 
chief part of his being, physically, mentally, and spiritu- 
ally, a gushing, throbbing, warm, true Great Heart. 

And now we are to write that this great heart has 
ceased to beat. In the quiet cemetery, near the little 
town of Dover, his still and silent form has been laid away 
until the great day of resurrection. 

The green ^grass waves gently over him, and from the 
neighboring wood the sound of the singing of birds is low. 

Sleep on, great heart! Thou art done with earth and 
its sorrows and joys, its victories and defeats, its sins and 
virtues. Many of thy comrades have gone before. A 
few years more and the last one will cross over to thee. 
But while we live, aye, while our children and children's 
children live, there shall never a deed of daring, or an act 
of devoted friendship, such as thou didst love to hear of 
and do, be jDerformed, but that the telling of it shall bring 
thee fresh to mind, and so all the heroism of the land shall 
help to keep thy memory green. 

Sleep on, great heart! Thougn there shall be sighs and 
prayers and '^ tears and breaking hearts for thee," thou 
shalt never more feel a kindred woe. 

Sleep on, great heart! Thine enemies are powerless to 
do thee harm. For when detraction, and envy, and hate, 
and all uncharitableness have done their worst, and heaped 
upon thy grave all of thy weaknesses and thine errors, 
thy follies and thy sins, we might admit them all, but we 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES. 195 

will bring such a multitude of thy merits, thy countless 
kindly acts so secretly done, thy devotedness to friends 
who owe thee all, thy generosity to foes now turned to 
friends, thine undaunted courage, thy perfect sincerity, 
thy noble unselfishness, and thine undying faithfulness 
though thyself hath died, and lay them, too, upon thy rest- 
ing place, until when the angels look down from heaven 
they will see only the mountain of thy virtues, under 
whose towering height all of thine imperfections are com- 
pletely hid from sight. 

Sleep on, great heart! Love is stronger than hate. 
Where one shall blame a hundred more shall praise — 
where one condemn a thousand shall pay you tribute of 
undying love. 

Love shall stand guard for thee, 

Friends without number, 
Bereaved and disconsolate over thee weep: 

Sweet be thy dreams. 
Untroubled thy slumber; 

Tranquilly, peacefully, resifully sleep. 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES 



MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Kansas City Times, May 5, 1889.] 

No pen but his own should write of a nature like that of the 
brilliant journalist who died yesterday at Jefferson City The spii it 
of Major John N. Edwards is justly measured in the hearts of a 
thousand men who knew him on the battlefield and in the intellect- 
ual life of later years, but to interpret it in words is beyond any one 
who has not his richness of flashing phrase, his warm love of the 
great and the beautiful and his constant study of the best literary 
models. And who has those resources, or who has the charity of 
soul, the tender sympathy, the insight into the subtler beauties of 
humanity and nature? Not one. Yet friendship will not allow the 
first opportunity to pass for telling the world, however poorly, what 
a noble man has departed. 

Filling a part in the intense commercial life of the West, Major 
Edwards had no thought of money except to regret that he had not 
more when he wished to help a fellow man. In an age of ephem- 
eral literature he had no literarj passion except for the greiit masters, 
and if his all-embracing charity preserved a patience with the slight 
performances of the day, his unspoiled taste saved him fn m either 
admiration or imitation. Absorbing from his intimate acquaintance 
with the masters of all nations, a vast amount of knowledge, he 
formed a style all his own, and for twenty years he has had a circle 
of readers wider than that gathered around any contemporary Amer- 
ican journalist. The chivalric spirit of the man, his bountiful vocab- 
ulary, his singular faculty for imaginative illustration, his habit of 
instantly striking at the heart of a subject and his skill in changing 
from the simplest of prose to the dramatic or poetic, as the phases 
of his thought suggested, invested his writing with an individualny 
and charm which every one of the readers in the circle recognized 
at a glance. As the soldier boys were cheered and held to their 
cause by his brave example in the weary days at the close of the 
war, his friends — and all the readers were his friends — were held to 
their political allegiance, to their faith in ideals and works, when 
the mistakes and misfortunes incident to most human affairs threat- 
ened disorganization and dispersion. The measure of his service s 
to his party and to all other good causes which he made his own can 
never be taken, because there neither is or can be a record of such 
efforts. 

Thinkers enough there are and trained writers, but who like 
him can clothe every thought in shining raiment? Who has for 
every abstraction its symbol, and for every feeling its signet? Who 
knows the ways to the core of mankind's heart as he ''did andean 
utter the word which makes it palpitate as he could? Moreover, is 
there another who possesses men's affections to such a degree and has 

196 



NEVYSPAPEIl TRIBUTES, 197 

drawn on them so little. In all his life he never sought to advance 
himself. With all his abundant abilities he never boasted tbat he 
could do anything. With a courage so immaculate thatitvp^asa 
proverb, he was the man gentlest in speech and most lovable in 
nature in whatever community he lived. 

Major Edwards was a hero worshiper in the noblest sense. He 
worshiped great qualities and reveled in watching the play of mighty 
forces as they wroght mighty deeds. He never wearied of picturing 
in his inimitable style the impact of genius on history. Beyond any 
man he had that 

"Highmindedness, a jealousy for good, 
A loving kindness for the great man's fame." 

With the poet's imagination he combined a remarkable power 
of taking in a larger way an estimate of actual movements. This 
power was displayed again and again, when but little more than a 
boy, in his career as a soldier. Mature and able field officers were 
not ashamed to seek his advice and to be guided by his judgment. 
He displayed it with equal readiness as a journalist in dealing with 
political and social events. His eye was never off the game upon 
the European chessboard. He followed the diplomacy of Bismarck 
with the same zest he had for a presidential campaign in the United 
States, and he was seldom at fault in foreseeing the outcome of 
either. Worldly knowledge, of these national questions or of 
smaller matters, never made him cynical. In the highest or the 
lowliest he saw virtues before faults, and if he could, he would 
evade seeing faults at all. To the last his friendship was as tender 
and his sympathy as freely flowing? as a girl's. Enjoying relations 
of the warmest mutual esteem with many of the most distinguished 
statesmen of the country, he had an hour or a day, if need be, for 
the humblest claimant upon his attention. 

Major Edwards was the first editor of the Kansas City Times 
and the last years of his life were also spent in inspiring its staff 
with the ambition of vigorous journalism. What the host of lov- 
ing personal friends feel at the loss of the versatile journalist, the 
true-hearted man and the most loyal friend they could ever hope to 
meet the Tmes feels as a newspaper. His unique personality will 
not be reproduced soon if ever in the lifetime of those who have 
known him. Besides the other characteristics and gifts which 
excited such uncommon affection, he wa^ one of the rare beings of 
whom it can be said that he never felt animosity except to drive 
" Envy and malice to their native sty." 

Against those mean passions he could lay his lance in rest 
blithely and with determined energy. For all else he had forbear- 
ance when he could not give praise. 

It is not derogation to other good and brave men to say that the 
death of no man in Missouri would cause genuine pain and grief to 
so many and so different persons as that of John N. Edwards. Nor 
will the memory of any be so cherished. 

JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Kansas City Journal,^ 

Elsewhere the death of Major Edwards, for more than twenty 
years at various times connected with the press of Kansas City, is 
announced. At this writing we are not in possession of the par- 
ticulars attending or preceding his decease, and it is here we only 



198 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

desire to lay a flower on the bier of a child of genius, whose 
life story is as strange and weird as the inspiration of his pen. 

He was in every respect the result of birth and environment, 
and never for a day changed the habits of thought in which he 
grew up. All this rush, bustle and change we call modern prog- 
ress was a new and strange world to him and of which he never 
became a part. His literary inspirations were those of romance 
and of the age of romance. He was a knight of the antique order, 
and wrote of knights and their ideals. If he ever drew upon the 
more modern for his chivalric ideas it was of the Napoleon era and 
the ideals of the old guard. Some of the finest pen pictures that 
have graced contemporary journalism, were from his pen, and his 
admirers were in larger number than any of his contemporaries. 

We always thought and often told him that the political news- 
paper was not the field he should have selected, ashis mental organi- 
zation and brilliant word painting were best suited to the magazine, 
and it has always been a regret that he did not choose that field. 
His was a singularly gentle nature, and one that knew no fault with 
his friends and brooked no criticism of those he esteemed. The 
finest judgment we have ever heard passed upon him was that he 
was a child of the twelfth century born in the nineteenth. It seems 
extravagant, but it describes the peculiar genius of our dead friend. 

THE LATE JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Kansas City Glohe.] 

John N. Edwards died yesterday. Throughout the length and 
breadth of this State and scattered throughout this country are 
men who will grow sad as they hear of his demise. Death silently, 
swiftly stole into the din and clamor of the world about him and 
led him away. Silent forever is the pen from which eloquence 
always flamed — a natural eloquence such as the wild wood bird 
sings forth in its morning carols. His characteristic writings, 
startling for their boldness and originality, stirring for their pathos 
and genuine feeling, piercing with sharp satire or soothing with 
melodious measures, emanating from a heart at high tide until the 
man and his pen seemed one; will be seen no more in the press. 
Many of his works will be read and re-read — but most were written 
for the day which is past. John N. Edwards is dead. 

As for the man, he was a man indeed. As he wrote he spoke, 
he acted; he was loyal to his friends. As softly, harmoniously, 
sweetly as his measures formed themselves on paper — for he wrote 
in measures — so his generosity of heart and mind made themselves 
felt to those about him. Every time he met a man he made af riend. 
He had few enemies and even those M^ere compelled to admire him 
for his fearlessness. 

A BRIGHT AND SHINING LIGHT. 

[Kansas City Star, May 4.] 

The journalistic profession has lost a bright and shining light in 
the death of Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times, 
who died this morning at Jefl'ersonCity, after an illnessof two days. 
He was barely fifty years of age, and was, therefore, in the very 
zenith of his intellectual powers. As a newspaper man he was one 
of the most commanding figures in the West. He was a writer of 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 199 

remarkable vigor, and liis style was so picturesque as to invest his 
work with a thoroughly distinctive quality. He possessed a dra- 
matic power of description which will live in several volumes of 
war literature which he has left as mementoes of his genius. He 
loved the State of Missouri, and as an able and conscientious expo- 
nent of public thought, it was his high privilege to advance all of the 
interests of the State of his adoption. His professional career dated 
back to the day of small beginnings in the West, but it covered a 
period of eventful growth and splendid prosperity. Personally, 
Major Edwards was one of the kindliest men whom the State has 
ever been called upon to mourn. He loved his friends and received 
from them a full requital of the affection which he bestowed upon 
them. The intelligence of his death will awaken tender and tearful 
regret wherever he was known, and he leaves behind him a memory 
as fragrant with all the sweet amenities of life as the flowers which 
will be spread upon his grave. 

JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[St. Louis Repuhlic.'] 

Major John N. Edwards is dead. Missouri never had a more 
picturesque figure, and there never was a kinder, more generous 
heart than his. Had he lived five centuries ago he would have been 
as great and full of honors as he was noble in all his instincts, but 
living as he did at the close of the nineteenth century, his high 
spirit simply fretted itself out against the bars of a utilitarian civili- 
zation. He was really a poet, and nothing else, but the accident of 
his birth at a time when the Civil War overtook him just as his 
mind was in its formative period, made him what Missouri knew 
him, a gallant, chivalric soldier, who remained a soldier up to the 
day of his death. As a journalist he never exercised any direct in- 
fluence; that is, he nearly always failed to accomplish what he set 
out to accomplish. Indirectly his influence was wide. Working 
himself to white heat wherever he saw or fancied he saw a wrong, 
he struck off phrases like sparks from an anvil, and many of these 
phrases will survive him for many decades after his death. They 
are used in politics all over the country by thousands who have no 
idea of their origin; who never heard of Edwards. 

Living over and over again in journalism and politics the days 
of wild dash when he rode by the side of General J. O. Shelby, life 
for him was indeed a warfare. He had in his head always the jingle 
of the spurs and the clashing of swords in the old English ballads he 
loved above everything. Victor Hugo's Les Miserahles moved and 
influenced him more than all that has been written on government 
and political economy. 

He never abandoned a friend. He had known Jesse and Frank 
James when they were boys during the border war. Honorable and 
rigidly honest himself, he would have sacrificed bis life and his 
reputation rather than slight an appeal from these hunted outlaws 
for shelter. Loyalty with him was an overpowering instinct — his 
most marked trait, and he was as gentle and unobtrusive personally 
as he was loyal. Except when thrilled by devotion to some cause or 
other, he always sought the background. 

As a newspaper writer, he never sought to advance himself, but 
always worked for the advancement of others. His style as a 
writer was highly poetical and it grew less effective in journalism as 
his peculiarities of imagination gained more and more the control of 



£00 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

his judgment. Frequently when he found a subject that would 
bear his style, his hurried productions had a wide popularity. An 
article thus written on the marriage of Nelly Grant was copied 
through this country and in Europe, audit is said that it touched 
General Grant deeply. He had the faults and weaknesses of an 
impulsive, poetical temperament, and one of these, growing 
habitual, marred his usefulness. But were all said that could be 
said of his faults, it would not weigh at all with those who knew 
him in his gentleness and in his enthusiasms. 

A DEAD JOURNALIST. 

[St. Louis Sjjcctator.} 

In the sudden death of Major J. N. Edwards western journalism 
has certainly lost one of its most brilliant votaries. His style was at 
once original, unique, and frequently startling and erratic. Tender 
and pathetic as no other man could make it, if sympathy touched 
his heart; every line he ever wrote in memoriam was a poem in itself. 
Nurtured during the romance and realism of war, his pen, as if 
dipped in blood, followed the fierce, fiery trail of his thoughts, if he 
felt conscious a wrong had been perpetrated or an injustice done. 
Many will, no doubt, remember his brilliant and heroic fusilade of 
boiling fury, burning anathemas and fierce denunciations, which he 
poured out upon the perpetrators of the death of Jesse James. Not 
that he in any way approved the method of the Jarnes boys, but 
treachery to a friend was with him high treason. The following 
tribute to the subject of this sketch was written many years ago from 
Jefferson City, the scene of his death, by one who knew him well: 
* ' He always seems to be a stranger wherever he goes. Walks alone, 
seldom speaks to anybod}^ and does not smile three times a day. He 
is one of the oddest and best of men; has the forehead and eyes of a 
poet, and the nose and m.outh of a soldier. Equally at home in bat- 
tle and the flowery field of imagination. Sad in face, but glad in 
heart, fierce like an eagle, gentle as the soul of a dove. One who 
loves a man for his strength and a woman for her neatness. Noble, 
generous, child-like in simplicity, but great in mind, a journalist, a 
historian, and altogether one of Missouri's most illustrious sons. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[St. Louis Globe-Democrat.'] 

The death of Major John N. Edwards carries off, suddenly and 
unexpectedly, one of the brightest men connected with the journal- 
ism of the West. In the ]3ast twenty years the pen of Major 
Edwards has given point and brilliancy to half a dozen newspapers 
of the State — in St. Louis, in St. Joseph, in Sedalia and in Kansas 
City. He had wonderful power of expression and description, and 
his mind was an arsenal of facts gathered from extensive reading 
and garnered in a retentive memory. He wrote always on tlie 
side of his earnest convictions, and hence was often out of accord 
with the Democratic party, to which he belonged, although his 
variences were generally as to men rathrr than as to principles. 
He was an honorable as well as a forcible opponent in debate, and 
always kept within the lines of strict decorum in the discussion of 
public questions. He will be greatly missed from the field of news- 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 201 

paper controversy, and he will leave behind him a vacancy which 
will not soon be tilled. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[The Journalist, New York.] 

The death of the veteran journalist, John N. Edwards, who 
died in Jetferson City, Mo.; recently, takes from the ranks of journal- 
ism one of its oldest members and ablest writers. 

His writing had a peculiar charm. His style was all his own. He 
wrote wholly in prose, and put the most cogent argument in music 
that charmed the ear while it convinced the reason. The writings 
of no living journalist had a more distinct and striking personality 
Hs never wrote a line that was not interesting, nor a sentence that 
it was not a pleasure to read. His editorial writing attracted the 
attention of the country. It was inimitable and unequaled. 

Major Edwards was a commanding figure in Missouri politics. 
It is not too much to say of him that he had more warm personal 
friends than any man in the State. Yet while always taking an 
active part in politics he was never a candidate for office, and would 
never listen to any suggestions that he should become one. He was 
the leading figure in the fight which resulted in Senator Vest's first 
election, when he beat Samuel Glover, the father of the present 
ex- Congressman of St. Louis. The Missouri Republican made a bit- 
ter fight against Vest, and after he was elected the Glohe-Democrat, 
editorially, gave Major Edwards the credit for electing him. It was 
conceded at the time that he did more than any other one man to 
bring about the result. His personal influence was remarkable. 
Thel riends that he made were devoted, and would go to any length 
to accommodate him. He supported Governor Crittenden in hiscon- 
test against General Marmaduke, butwasa warm supporter of Gen- 
eral Marmaduke in the campaign which resulted in his nomination. 
He never used hisinfiuence for his own advancement, butwasalways 
generous in his endeavors for the success of his friends. Had his 
political ambition run in the line of ofiice-seeking there islittle doubt 
that he could have had anything in the gift of the people. ^ There was 
probably more genuine regard and warm personal feeling for him 
than for any man who ever took a prominent part in State politics.' 

The death of no man in Missouri was ever mournod more sin- 
cerely than the death of Major Edwards will be. Everybody who 
kaew him loved him. The attachments which he created were 
remarkable. No one ever became acquainted with him without 
becomingwarmly attached to him. In conversation and manner he 
was as gentle and modest as a woman He was uniformly courteous 
and kind. With him rank was but the guinea's stamp. He judged 
men on their merits, and the man poor in money and fame received 
the same considerate treatment that would have been accorded a mil- 
lionaire or the President. His nature was a peculiarly lovable one, 
and his friends entertained a warm affection for him seldom given 
by one man to another. 

THE DEATH OF MAJOR EDWARDS. 

[Colonel John C. Moore in Pueblo, Colo. Despatch.] 

Major Edwards was at the time of his death about fifty years of 
age— in the prime of his manhood and the flower of his intellect. 



202 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

He was a Virginian by birth, though since early youth he liad lived 
in and been identifietl with Missouri. He acquired his education 
chietiy in a printing oflice at Lexington, but before he reached his 
majority, the war coming on, he espoused the Southern side and 
enlisted as a private in a company raised and equipped by Captain 
Jo. Shelby. The military tie thus formed lasted through the war, 
and as Shelby became successively colonel of a regiment, general of 
brigade and general of division, Edwards advanced in grade with 
him as adjutant, assistant adjutant-general, and chief of staff, and 
finally after the close of the war the historian of the achievements 
of his dashing commander and his gallant comrades in arms. 

Indeed, he and General Shelby went to Mexico together in 1865, 
and while in that country his book " Shelby and His Men" was 
principally written. Being written at such a time and under such 
circumstances, it was, of course, full of the fire and passions and 
animosities of the war, and though not history in its higher and 
more philosophical sense, it is a splendid pageant of four years serv- 
ice in one of the greatest wars of theworld, and contains anabun- 
dance of the material of which history is made. After his return 
from Mexico he wrote "The Unwritten Leaves of History," which 
gave a graphic account of the deeds and misdeeds of the Confed- 
erate contingent in that country, and of a most interesting episode 
in Mexican history — the attempt and failure to establish the imperial 
dynasty of Maximilian in that country. 

But it was as a journalist that his greatest and most effective 
powers were exerted. The hurry, the rush, and the necessities of 
life did not afford him leisure for the cultivation of literature in its 
more permanent forms, though not infrequently he turned aside 
from the weary path of daily labor to write a sketch or an essay, 
Avhich showed what he might have done under more favorable cir- 
cumstances. In a remarkable degree he possessed the temperament 
of " phantasie and flame," which from the bcginciLg of the world 
has been the birthright of the poet, the orator, the enthusiast, and 
those whoimpress themselves strongly on their fellows and control 
them by a power as irresistible as it is subtle and undefioable. His 
mental processes were original. With fine powerof logic and analy- 
sis — with wit, humor, and sarcasm at his command — his strength as 
a writer consisted chiefly in hisunequaled capacity as a rhetorician. 
It is to be doubted whether he had his equal among American jour- 
nalists in pathos, eloquence, epigrammatic point, vividness of 
description, and tropical luxurianceof rhetorical illustration, when at 
fit his best. When in earnest — as he usually was, for his nature was 
essentially loyal to whatever he undertook — his articles swept on, 
like an impetuous stream bearing everything before it, the reader 
forgetting to analyze, to criticise, or to question. 

KNIGHTLY IN WHATEVER HE DID. 

[Frank H. Brooks, in Chicago Times.'] 

"Major John N. Edwards was unobtrusive, personally. He 
would no more wound the feelings of his fellowman than he would 
desecrate the grave of his best friend. But in times, when it was 
necessary for him to stand out and engage in a conflict, he was as 
brave as a lion and picturesque in his manner of warfare. He had 
sometimes in his composition that reminded one of old Murat and 
yet he was perfectly free from bluster and ostentation. 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 3C3 

"Major Edwards was knightly in whatever he did, and gave the 
West a romantic coloring which attached to no other section. As 
polished as any courtier, no matter whether he was in a hand-to- 
hand conflict or in a drawing-room; as merciful as a Sister of Charity 
and as tender as a mother. 

" No matter what flag fluttered over the suffering, if he was in 
the vicinity he turned aside and acted the role of the good Samari- 
tan. If he could do this without his left hand being any the wiser 
for it, it suited him so much the better. If any man had a contempt 
for dress-parade it was John N. Edwards. 

" When the war was over Jo Shelby and some of his followers, 
w^ho had dreamed of an empire on this side of the Atlantic, went 
galloping over the border and presented themselves to Maximilian, 
in the City of Mexico. Edwards was one of the company. It was 
a strange soldiery, as picturesque as anything in the story of Spain. 
ISlot a man in that company who had not bee-n present at some of the 
receptions of the most notable people in his own country. Isfot a 
man who was not a nobleman by nature. Not one who had not had, 
before the war, his retinue of servants and all that money could 
give. Not one who did not speak the court language as fluently as 
he spoke his own. Not one who was not fitted for the conventional- 
ities of the drawing-room of any crowned head. Edwards, in par- 
ticular, as shy as a fawn even then, became a favorite with Maxi- 
milian, and was a guest at the capital at the invitation of Carlotta, 
who never tired of hearing his stories cf the country from which he 
came. 

" This unique soldiery, however, soon returned to their own 
country and became loyal and useful citizens. Carlotta went home 
across the water, and the pitiful story of her fate has been told in 
tears all around the globe. Edwards wrote a tribute to her on the 
occasion of her malady, which was printed and copied the land 
over and translated into various languages in the old world. It was 
the tenderest and purest bit of English that ever came from pen." 

DEATH OF JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Robert M. Yost, in Sedalia Gazettc.1 

Major John N. Edwards is dead. 

In the estimate which men make of human life and character, 
that disposition weighs most and is most sublime which carries in 
its warp and woof the woven thr'eads of charity and chivalry, of 
gentleness and courage, of devotion to principle and duty, com 
mingled with that love of fellowman which is womanl}^ in its ten 
derness and grim in its determination. 

And such a disposition had John N. Edwards. There was not 
more of the rich purple of fruition in the great grapes of Eschol. 
carried on men's shoulders out of the land of Canaan, than in the 
blood of this heroic, childlike gentleman. No matter in what 
society nor under what circumstances he wrote or spoke, he had 
that kindliness of nature, that splendor of courtesy, which harmed 
no man without a just and sorrowful cause. And amid all the 
brilliant and beautiful things which found their w^ay from his teem- 
ing brain into human hearts, there was never one sting of malice, ot 
envy, or of strife. Though pre-eminently a man of peace; though 
born for the contemplation of sylvan shades and nights in June; 
though nurtured by the velvet hand of poesy, and surrounded 



204 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

through life by convoys of cherubic thoughts, John N. Edwards 
rode down with the guns on many a hard-fought battle-field and 
smiled at the skeleton of death beside him; and rattled its dry 
bones with no more thought of fear than has the prattling child 
amid a field of clover-blooms. 

And if he had ever contemplated a time to die, he would have 
chosen yesterday as that time. The birds of spring were chirping 
at his window; a golden flood of light had burst upon the world, 
and the green woods flushed with sunshine, and shadowed here 
and there, sang the praises of nature and of nature's God. It was a 
peaceful hour; and when the great soul sped away to its haven of 
rest the time and the hour were richer with the weight of duty 
done. 

There will be tears in every household of Missouri over the death 
of John N. Eli wards. Tears for the man who loved the children 
and the soldiers. Tears for him who rode booted and spurred into 
the enemy's guns, and then turn to weep over the dead comrades 
w^ho laid "down their lives beside him. Tears for the journalist, 
who knew neither fear nor malice. Tears for the patroit, who 
hated nothing more fiercely than treachery and cowardice. Tears 
for the neighbor and friend, whose hospitable door stood always 
open, and whose hand, ever extended in genorsity to the poor, the 
friendless and the outcast, never closed upon a dishonest dollar. 
Tears for the husband and father, at whose grave will weep not 
only a loving wife and children, «but the wives and children of all 
men in this broad State who love virtue and its defenders. Tears 
to-day and tears to-morrow. And then a blessed memory of one 
who gilded the sunshine while he lived, and then went down to 
death with all the majestic calmness of one who lies down to 
pleasant dreams. 

After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. 

IN MEMORY OF MAJ. EDWARDS. 

[George W. Terrell, in Boonville Advertiser.} 
I had lost a friend in Romney Leigh,— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

One does not need to have a flaming fancy to picture to himself 
this knight-errant of the nineteenth century riding down from the 
ancient Arthurian days right into the heart of this grand State of 
ours, and into the very midst of the time in which we move and 
rejoice. He might have ridden, panoplied and illumed, beside the 
peerless Bayard in the stormy lists of the long ago, for his actual 
career, in all its multiform incidents and episodes, rhymed, one 
may say. as the lines of a poem rhyme, with the wild music of the 
olden lances, the trumpets, and the spurs of gold. 

Anyone who knew John N. Edwards intimately could not sit 
down and read Tennyson's tragic "Idylls of the King" without 
being keenly reminded of this chivalrous gentleman, soldier, and 
journalist, wjiose mortal remains lie now beneath Missouri's sacred 
sod. The brave, sweet, musical, strong voice, sharp withcommand, 
or soft in speech to friend and Tvoman; the poise of the fine head, 
with a front of princely power; the large, luminous, liquid, dark 
eyes, that were made to flash with fury or dreamily melt in love, 
were only a part of the super!) physical equipment given to our 
dear friend by the Creator himself. 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 205 

Major Edwards was fashioned and molded for the very day and 
generation in which he lived. When the great civil struggle broke 
forth upon land and sea, he had just attained to the estate of lusty 
manhood. Beardless, but bold as a lion, he found a neighbor near 
at hand who, of all men in the world, was to personify his supreme 
idealization of the true soldier. This was none other than the famous 
GeneralJo Shelby. With him the young cavalryman went gaily to 
the war as a Knight of the Round Table was wont to enter the tragic 
tournaments in times of the vanished kings and queens. How well 
he rode, and how far; and how finely he fought in all those four 
long years, need not be recounted in these imperfect lines. As a fit- 
ting and dramatic close to his brilliant career in the States, what could 
be more fascinating than the episode of Shelby's expedition to Mexico 
— one of the most strangely romantic in the annals of American 
history. 

Edwards' career was no less notable in the paths of peace than 
on the ensanguined plains of battle. As his glittering blade gleamed 
brighter than all others in the front of the fight, so his pen cast forth 
gems of rhetoric richer in their quality than anything in Western 
authorship. In picturing roses and wine and the graces of pretty 
women his fancy was riotous in its profusion of poesy. In describ- 
ing the deeds of valor done by his beloved Confederate comrades, 
his phrases and epigrams had the brilliancy of the rapier and the 
beauty and suppleness of the keen-flashing Damascus blade. His 
eulogies of dead friends and companions were as tender and exquis- 
ite as anything of the kindin the English language. 

On Monday, near the quaint little village of Dover, in Lafayette 
county, a muliitude of tearful men and women assembled to see his 
form lowered gently to its last resting-place. All the trees were 
melodious with the songs of birds ; all the rich grasses and fields 
were abloom with flowers. The sweet young maiden, May, her vio- 
let cheeks wet with the mist of many memories, bent from the blue 
sky above the grave ; and in this wise, the simple soldier, the 
incomparable journalist, and the ideal chevalier of these days of 
ours, was hidden away forever from the brimming eyes of his earthly 
friends. 

FROM THE MISSOURI PRESS ASSOCIATION. 

At a meeting of the Missouri Press Association, held at Nevada 
June 5, 1889, before the adoption of the report on memorials, Presi- 
dent Williams paid the following beautiful and touching tribute to 
the memory of Colonel Turner and Major Edwards: '^Especially 
has this Association, with the press of Missouri, suffered loss in the 
death of Joseph H. Turner and John N. Edwards, more prominent 
for various reasons than the others named. They were both news- 
papfn- men to the manor born; they both knew something of the 
wastes along which the editor's pathway often goes, where streams 
are not, nor springs nor water of refreshment anywhere. They 
both had tasted of the bitter and the sweet. Modestly they accepted 
fate, drank deep of life, knew books and hearts of men, cities and 
camp-^, and man's immortal woe. They both had battled with the 
sword and pen. Soldiers both, they were better citizens therefor. 
They loved bravery and gentleness and were brave and gentle alto- 
gether. Honor and duty and love were theirs and littleness was as 
foreign to their natures as impurity to the sea. 

" Their spheres of life were different and their characters dis- 
similar. The one brilliant, meteoric, chivalric, passionate in word 



206 JOHN NEWMAN EBTTARDS. 

and deed, an Artliurian knight who had ridden down from the 
days of the Round Table nntil now; the otlier conservative, practical, 
genial, with big body and large heart, a faithful officer, a zealous 
worker, more in smaller circle perhaps, but equally courageous, 
tender and true. The one a soldier who had worn the blue with 
credit and had followed where the old commander led, the other 
who had donned the gray a blue eyed and beardless boy, and 
doifed it only when the cause for which he fought was lost— the 
stars and bars gone down and with them all save honor. What 
better requiem now for these friends of ours to whom death's drum- 
beathascalled 'Lightsout' thaiithatsaidorsungoverSirLauncelot's 
dead body, ' for than these no goodlier gentlemen ever set lance in 
rest, none braver drew swords in the press of knights.' This much 
would I fain say in loving remembrance of these men — buried the 
one at Carrollton, yondermid the gold and scarlet of autumn leaves, 
touched and tinged with frost; the other entombed on Lafayette's 
prairies, broad and sunlit as his soul, within sight of the old home- 
stead where he had wooed, won, and wedded the faithful 
woman who was at his side through good and ill. 

"Turner and Edwards — of different creeds, of different faiths, of 
opposing politics— they were both large-hearted, clean-handed, cour- 
ageous gentlemen and journalists. Helpful always to those who 
needed help, loved most by those who knew them best, they richly 
deserve this tribute at our hands. Upon the roster, where the names 
of Regan and Carter and McFarland and Jim Anderson were placed, 
let theirs also be inscribed, and after them let it be written, as the 
response for two centuries the name of the famous old French 
grenadier was, ' dead on the field of honor, 'and as we close their 
Fepulchers, where the flowers bloom and grass is grown to-day, we 
seem to catch in the clangor of the vault door swinging shut the 
echo of the opening of the pearly gates of Paradise, and straining 
our eyes through the darkness here, where the widow and children 
and friends group blindly, wanderingly, do we not see across the 
river, yonder, where the boatman rows us one by one, the gleaming 
of lights of the harbor, and heavenly harbor at last." 

DEATH OF MAJOR EDWARDS. 

[Jefferson City Tribune] 

Missouri has lost her greatest newspaper man and her constella- 
tion of journalists is dimmed by the departure of its most brilliant 
member. Major John N. Edwards is dead, and again is exempli- 
fied the adage that the King of Terrors loves a shining mark. 

"John N. Edwards, the brilliant writer and prince of journal- 
ists, is dead." That was the sorrowful news the telegraph carried 
out to the journalists of the South and West yesterday. No sadder 
intelligence than this has flashed over the wires out of this city. 
Truly, a great man in journalism "has fallen this day," As the 
sun in the firmament is to the solar system, so was Major John N. 
Edwards to the journalisticfirmament. Butthe sun has set while it was 
yet noon. Few attain such eminence in their profession even when 
hoary hairs adorn their brow as he attained while yet in the prime 
of life and full vigor of manhood. Of him it can be said: "His 
eye was not dim nor his natural force abated," But he is gone — out 
into the great unknown future his spirit winged its way. The sum- 
mons came and he obeyed the mandate. He died as he had lived — a 
friend to the unfortunate and down-trodden. No kind mother ever 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 207 

SDreal the covering more tenderly over her sleeping infant than 
John N. Edwards spread the mantle of charity over the erring and 
the fallen. 

Brave as a lion, gentle as a lamb, none ever appealed to him for 
charity in vain; the defenseless always found in him a prompt and 
fearless advocate; a perfect stranger to personal fear, he was equally 
unmoved by flattery or adulation. Always guided by the most noble 
and generous impulses, he was wholly incapable of committing a 
pusillanimous act. His severest journalistic castigationswerealways 
cLiaracterized by a purity of thought and chastity of language sel- 
dom exhibited by caustic writers. Would that all writers could be 
induced to emulate his noble virtues in this respect. "Peace to his 
ashes." 

JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

[Lexington Intelligencer.'] 

John Edwards is dead. The brave, the true, the gentle, the 
chivalric John Edwards has gone to sleep in death. His lance 
is at rest; his pen will idly rust, and from every combat in which 
men engage, we who have so long looked for him in every fray will 
look for him in vain. There are few men like him. He had his 
faults, perhaps, but who has not, and of how many of us can it be 
said that these were as light as autumn leaves in comparison with 
the merits of his virtues? His pen was ever ready to defend the 
right; it never faltered in works of beneficence and mercy. The 
weak possessed a claim upon him which he ne'er resisted, and the 
poor had in him a champion and a friend. In this world of selfish- 
ness and greed he knew no such thing as self, and was constantly an 
immolation upon the altar of his love for hisfellowmen. 

He was a poet, a soldier, and a politician — a poet from the days 
when a boy in a printing office in old Virginia he used surrepti- 
tiously to hang his effusions on the hook; a soldier from the day 
when duty first called him to the field, and a politician in that larger 
sense which seeks by the means of government to better and to 
ameliorate the condition of mankind. He was a student and a phi- 
losopher. Books were his idols, and he worshiped at no polluted 
slirine. The best that philosophy, history, and poetry afforded was 
the contemplation of his leisure, and the instrument with which he 
delved for men. 

In the society of the learned and the high, men listened to his 
words, surprised at their erudition and their depth; in company 
with the lowly he had language equal to their comprehension 
and their needs. Religion to him was nothing for passing show, to 
be lightly taken up or as lightly laid aside. No man ever more 
realizthed the awfulness and mightiness of God ; no man ever more 
reverently whispered His name. No man more thoroughly believed 
in the immortality of the soul, or more completely appreciated the 
immensity of consequent responsibilities. As little as he talked of 
It, no man was more thoroughly a religious man than he. 

In his composition there was no such thing as fear. Death had 
no terrors for him. Often near it he neither sought, nor shrunk 
from it. At the last, had he known that it had overtaken him, he 
would, 

" Sustained and soothed 
i3y an unfaltering- trust, approach his grave 
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 



208 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

It was not only those in his own household that loved Jolih 
Edwards. As keen as the scimeter of he Saracen in combat, as 
merciless in debate as he was gentle in personal contact, his politi- 
cal opponents honored, respected, and often loved him. This grew 
largely out of his admiration for bravery and virtue wherever found. 
He eulogized Conkling, and he apotheosized Nellie Grant. While 
he fought like a tiger on the field, whether of arms.or politics, he 
could no more abuse power than he could condone a lie or for- 
give a meanness. 

DEATH OF JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Columbia Herald.'] 

Thousands throughout the length and breadth of the land will 
receive the news of Major Edwards' death with the profoundest sen- 
sations of sorrow. He possessed a remarkable personal magnetism. 
Singularly unobtrusive and modest, and apparently indifferent, 
touching the attraction of others, he yet drew to him all men with 
v»?hom he came in close contact — many of them by ties of strong 
and genuine affection. While he was a hard fighter, whether in 
politics or war, his bosom bore no malice, and his greatest happiness 
lay in unselfish service of those he loved. 

As a writer he was without a peer. To the imagination and 
diction of the poet he added the vigorous and pungent force of a 
practical journalist. No man connected with the Missouri press has 
written so many beautiful things — has left behind so many produc- 
tions glittering with rhetorical gems, and at the same time no pen 
has been wielded with more rapier-like vigor and effect in the realm 
of practical politics. He has been a positive force in Missouri jour- 
nalism for twenty years, and no one connected with newspapers has, 
during that period, impressed his personality so strongly upon pub- 
lic affairs. Personally he was the embodiment of chivalry, and, as 
both soldier and journalist, he evinced qualities which characterized 
rather the days of the crusader or cavalier than the prosaic periods 
of the nineteenth century. 

A gifted writer, a generous friend, an accomplished citizen, a 
thorough gentleman, he passed away. We shall not look upon his 
like again. 

,TOHN N. EDWARDS. 

1 Hunnewell (Kan.O Bee.'] 

Ah, Sir Launcelot ! thou wert head of all Christian knights ; now there thou 
liest; thou wert never matched of none earthly knight's hands. And thou 
Avert the curtlest knight that ever bore shield. And thou wert the kindest 
man that ever strook with sword. And thou wort the meekest man that 
ever eate in hall among ladies. And thou wei-t the sternest knight to thy 
Mortal foe that ever put speare in rest.— Mortc iV Arthur. 

It is difficult to speak soberly at this time of the gallant soldier, 
the generous man, the brilliant journalist, the strong, earnest, and 
true Democrat for whose sudden death all Missouri mourns. Those 
who knew him personally testify to his warm heart, his unselfish- 
ness, and his personal bravery. To those who, like the writer of 
this, only knew him through the medium of his writings, these testi- 
monials come with a peculiarly grateful sound. We know of no 
man in America whose literary style was quite so charming and 
delightful as that of Major Edwards. It is difficult to describe it 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES, 209 

and impossible to analyze it. All history seemed to be at his com- 
mand and he possessed a wonderful knack of seizins its strikiuff 
and dramatic features and placing them before the minds of his 
readers He had not only read history but he had lived and acted 

; ., ^T. . ^9 ^}^^^ Par^ i^ the events of the late war on this side 
ot the Mississippi. 

_ He has left a record of what he saw in the form of an histor- 
ical work that IS the very masterpiece of our " Civil-War"literature 
It is no dry detail of marches and sieges, no monotonous recital of 
slaughter There is not a dull page in the book and scarcely a 
commonplace sentence. It is not a mere recital but a livintr 
pageant of stirring events. One hears through every paffe the 
trampling of armed squadrons, and catches the sound of the 
trumpet; there is the light of the bivouac fires on the bearded 
taces; there IS the thrilling episode, the gallant charge, the heroic 
death. And withal a faithful adherence to truth His editori-d 
writings were remarkable for their strength and brilliancy His 
sentences were saber-strokes. He was a hard-hitter, yet there was 
nothing coarse, nothing that was not polished and elegant. His 
party had no safer guide. He was essentially sound in his political 
utterances. He never once lost sight of the principles of Democ- 
racy, and It has been well said of him that he never wrote one 
sentence against his own convictions, no matter what the policy of 
the newspaper for which he wrote might be. The world of journal- 
ism will not again soon know his equal. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Saline County Progress.^ 
We do not know of any other Missouri journalist who has ever 
lived, to whose memory so many beautiful and touching tributes " 
have been written by his brethren of the press. Indeed this is no 
matter of wonder. Major Edwards, as a newspaper writer was 
unuiue inimitable, and one of the greatest lights that has 'ever 
tigured in Missouri journalism. He was the prince of Missouri news- 
paper men. Now that he is dead, all unite, regardless of party in 
one general chorus in praise of him who has done so much to honor 
and adorn the profession. They mourn the loss of him who more 
than any other, was the architect of the glory of the press of our 
htate— one who spent the best years of his life, the greatest vio-or of 
his mind, and the warmest sympathies of his large heart in secliring 
the advancement and dignity and power of the press of our State 
Missouri journalism mourns, in sorrow that cannot be comforted for 
him who was her pride and her glory, and who was chief among 'her 
gallaxy of bright men. 

"AT LAST." 

[Frostburg (Md.) Mining Journal.'] 
The Kansas City (Mo.) Times of last Sunday gives a lengthy 
account of the death on Saturday of Major John N. Edwards editor 
of that paper, and one of the most brilliant writers in the United 
States. We knew him as a youth of extraordinary promise. At 
fourteen years of age he became the author of a story which won 
for him a wide celebrity. Shortly after, he went to Missouri, where 
he led a checkered but always an honorable and brilliant career. 
A great publicist, he made friends in the highest walks of life. 



210 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Instead of seeking, he was always tlie sought; instead of pushing 
himself forward, he was unselfishly aggressive in promoting popu- 
lar preferment for his friends. He stood at the helm of great 
papers, to whom his flashing genius won wide circulation, and there 
is liardly a library in Missouri that does not contain his boots. 
Proudly remembered by the friends of his youth, there are thousands 
in the State of his adoption who will not look upon his like again. 

• JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Liberty Advance.'l 

As was said of the Douglass of old, "Thou art tender and 
true," so might as justly be said of this Palladin of the nineteenth 
century. In harmonious unison with the pulse-throbs that beat the 
blood about the chivalric hearts of Roland and Bayard, moved his 
blood around a heart as bold as Coeur de Leon's, as gentle as 
Romeo's. Naught that animated and inspired those bold deeds of 
chivalry in the past, around which our memory in admiration so 
loves to cling, was foreign to or absent from the heart of this 
brilliant man, this sympathetic friend, this noble foe. 

His was a character at once strong and attractive, and in the 
long line of mourning friends who followed in the funeral train to 
pay the last sad rites of respect to the dead, scarred and bearded 
cheeks, with channels worn deep and lasting by war's rigors, shed 
tears of sympathy, which freely commingled on the hero's grave 
with those of child and maiden. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Richmond Co7iservator.'] 

There was scarcely another man in Missouri whose death 
would have caused such universal regret and sadness as that of 
Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times. When the 
intelligence was flashed over the wires last Saturday that his spirit 
had gone out from its earthly tabernacle and passed into the mystic 
future, where the human eye can not penetrate or the human thought 
fathom, many a stout heart bled with sorrow from its very depths, 
and many an eye was reddened with tears of sadness. Almost 
every man in Missouri of any prominence knew John N. Edwards, 
either personally or by reputation, and those who were best 
acquainted with him were his warmest friends and most ardent 
admirers. He was no ordinary man, and those with whom he came 
in contact, as well as those who read from his pen, readily observed 
his superior talent as a writer and noble impulses as a man. His 
pen was a power in the journalistic field of Missouri and his influ- 
ence even extended beyond her lines. 

His brilliant and eloquent editorials were read with pleasure 
by thousands of his admirers, and were easily recognized as com- 
ing from his master mind, the reservoir of learning, of eloquence, 
and of poetry. As he thought lie wrote, and no man ever lived 
who could imitate or counterfeit his peculiar and original style. 
Nature endowed him with the superior faculty of drawing men to 
him, and to become acquainted with him was to be his friend and 
admirer. In opposition he was kind, generous, and sympathetic, 
and never permitted an opportunity of doing a charitable act to 
pass unnoticed. His body was laid to rest last Monday in the 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 211 

cemetery at Dover, where it will raolder and return to dust, but 
his excellent qualities will remain green in the minds of his friends 
and acquaintances for years to come, and they will recall with 
pleasure incidents of his brilliant career as a soldier, a journalist 
and an honored citizen of Missouri. 



A CHIVALRIC NOBLE SPIRIT. 

Major John N. Edwards is no more on this earth. 

What a grand, chivalric, and noble spirit has gone forever from 
among us! 

He, the darling idol of the ten thousand, Missouri's bravest, 
noblest, and best is carried away from this world's quickening 
theater into the realms of eiternal bliss, there to study the figures 
and poetry of life eternal, as did wont his soul to soar and magnet- 
ize in the days of his earthly career. 

The pen — his mighty pen is fallen ! 

No more in the great strife of' battle — we have the infantry of 
his logic, the bayonet-thrust of his sarcasm, the saber-stroke of his 
irony; the cavalry charge of his courage, the powerful and terrific 
thunderstorm of his denunciations, the artillery of his manhood, 
and above all the tenderness and sunshine of his immortal soul. 

In the quiet walks of life, a devoted and beloved husband; a 
kind, loving, and adored father; a firm, loyal, and unselfish friend; a 
remarkable'and valuable citizen ; a brave, generous, noble, sincere, 
manly man, who believed in the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man, is departed from us. 

All over Missouri the friends, comrades, and admirers of Major 
John N. Edwards by the tens of thousands deeply mourn his 
untimely death. 

This unrivaled journalist, this gifted, brilliant, and good man 
died too soon! 

As one who had the friendship of Major John N. Edwards from 
childhood, we loved him when he was with us. We mourn him 
dead. He had no enemies. 

"Bright be the place of thy soul. 
No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control, 
In the orbs of the blessed to shine." 



JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Cold water (Kas.) Star.'] 

And now sad tidings comes to us that Major John N. Edwards, 
of the Kansas City Times, is dead. This news strikes sadly upon 
our hearts. For over a quarter of a century we had known him, 
and known him to love him. Born on the historic soil of old 
Virginia, where he early acquired those noble and chivalric traits of 
character which were clearly shown in all his after life, John 
Edwards was a trained gentlemen, a scholar, and a friend, almost 
without a peer. To him, friendship was so noble a tie that no 
misfortune nor good fortune could ever break nor ever buy. John 
Edwards was one among the few men on earth whom solid gold 
could not buy. To him, friendship was almost a God. For him to 
be your friend, meant for him, if necessary, to suffer and to die in 
your behalf. To those who knew John Edwards, there came never 



212 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

a faint suspicion that confidence once given could ever there be 
misplaced. 

As a journalist, he ranked very high. As a literary v^^riter, he 
could have rivaled Victor Hugo, v^^'hom he greatly admired. Many 
of his writings, notably '* Poor Carlotta," stand in the front rank 
as gems of their kind. 

John Edwards is dead ! A noble soul has gone across the 
mystic river ! He had his faults ; but who more virtuous than he ! 
He never knew what it was to commit a little act ; his errors were 
against himself. He has gone to his last resting-place — to the great 
and mysterious unknown. No more shall we hear his pleasant, 
welcome voice ; no more gather pearls scattered from his fertile pen. 
Alas, his body molds. Too sad! too sad ! And yet, " To this 
complexion must we all come at last." 

A GREAT WRITER GONE. 

[Boonirille Topic] 

The most striking figure in Missouri journalism was made a 
memory when Major Edwards died. For years his writing had 
been familiar, stamped as it was with the impress of his own pecul- 
iar personality. Picturesque, abounding in original thoughts and 
poetical expressions, classical sometimes almost to obscurity, assert- 
ive always, logical never, his style was as well known throughout 
the West as though across every line and article had been written 
his initials or his name. Intense in friendships, he was equally 
uncompromising in his hatreds. He was a poet born. Through all 
his work the vivid imagery, the thought, the diction, the essence of 
poetry was to be seen. To all subjects that he touched he gave a 
golden tinge. He weaved for his favorites crowns of roses; thorns 
and nettles for those whom he did not like. He was a kniL-ht — a 
relic of the days of chivalry. In his life and writings he betrayed 
the influence of that by-gone age. His sword was never drawn save 
in what he thought to be a righteous cause. Upon his armor 
glistened always purity and truth. Obstaclesdid not deter him nor 
difficulties prevent him waging war. Personally, John Edwards 
was brave and lion-hearted. There was only one foe he could not 
face, and because he yielded to its temptations too often and too 
long. Death came, the pen was laid aside, and peacefully as one 
who sleeps when day is done, this man, still in the prime of life, 
answered to a summons from beyond. Bury his inconsistencies with 
him. Remember not the frailties of the dead. But his good of deed 
and word and splendid heart is inscribed on the memory of many 
that he helped and loved and labored for. May it fade not away 
from us forever. 

CHITALROUS AS A KNIGHT. 

[Ozark (Mo.,) Repuhlican.l 
The most brilliant writer Missouri ever nurtured to greatness 
has passed away. Major John N. Edwards died at Jefferson City 
on the 4th of May. The master of a style of vivid splendor he, like 
Goldsmith, "touched nothing which he did not adorn." An 
enthusiastic Democrat, and a Confederate who followed Shelby to 
Mexico, he nevertheless had hosts of Republican friends. Through 
all the wild, stern days of battle, John N. Edwards had fought, and 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 213 

during many a wofiil night he had ridden with the terrible men of 
the border, but he was always the soul of honor and as chivalrous 
as a knight of old. His strangely captivating style glittered with 
metaphors that were drawn from his reminiscences of the stormy 
but entrancing days when the great conflict tilled men's hearts with 
emotion and elevated their minds v/ith thoughts and experiences of 
epic grandeur. Of rhetoric.. Major Edwards was a very lord, painting 
ia the chambers of his imagery pictures of vermilion and gold. 
In his perfect diction there was always present that stimulus — that 
power of opening vistas vast as we see in dreams — which it is the 
privilege of genius only to possess. Many a Missourian must feel 
that when John N. Edwards died it was as if the bright star, A.lde- 
baran, had faded forever from the sight of men. 

JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[CJlrick Chronicle.'] 

By the death of John N. Edwards, which occu>rred suddenly at 
Jefferson City last Saturday, one of the brightest stars is removed 
from the galaxy of Western journalism. Major Edwards was the 
Napoleon of journalism. No pen in the West — we believe in the 
United States — was gifted so brilliantly as was his. His literary 
productions in the profession of his choice were of the most magnifi- 
cent type. Familiar with all the best authors of English literature, 
he was never at a loss for a simile from the productions of such 
writers as Shakspeare, Scott, and Moore. The master of the most 
vindictive sarcasm when his antagonism was aroused, and of the 
most disdainful irony when his contempt was excited, none were 
quicker to change to sympathetic strains when his foe was van- 
quished. Passing his earlier years among dangers known only to 
those who have witnessed the scenes of border warfare, he strongly 
imbibed the dash and impetuosity which he afterwards displayed in 
the journalistic arena. Quick and impulsive, possessing the spirit 
of independence, a stranger to policy, he was not alw^ays in harmony 
with his party. Yet he was a partisan in its strictest sense, so far 
as principles were concerned. He never lost sight of the tenets 
established by those whom he esteemed as the founders of his party. 

No man is perfect, so let his weaknesses be forgotten as he is 
laid beneath the clods of the valley, while we, as members of the 
same profession, cherish his memory for the good he has done 
and may our conception of him as an ideal journalist tend to the 
elevation of journalism in this country. Peace to his ashes. 

HE HELPED THE NEEDY. 

[Jefferson City Correspondence Chicago Times.'] 

A man and woman, who alighted from a common farm-wagon, 
attracted considerable attention yesterday as they entered the 
McCarty House and passed up to the room where lay the remains of 
INIajor John N. Edwards, the Kansas City editor, who had died a few 
hours before of paralysis. The woman was in tears, and her hus- 
band evidently was trying hard to conceal his emotion. Both were 
well along in years, and his hair was streaked with gray. 

'* Am I related to Major Edwards ?" he said to an attendant. 
**No ; but I would have done as much for him as I would for a 
brother. He did me a friendly act once when I was a stranger and in 



214 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

sore need of friends. Nobody but Major Edwards would have done 
it. I was in the army, and got word that my wife, Mary, was very 
sick and likely to die To come back almost certainly meant to be 
taken prisoner, but I decided to risk it. Several days I hung around 
the neighborhood, and became nearly famished, and then 1 made a 
break for the house. I was captured by two men and taken before 
Major Edwards. To him I told my story. He believed me, and 
accompanied me to my house. Mary was at death's door, but a 
doctor came, and things that were necessary were provided. Finally 
she got better, and I was sent back to my company, the only thing 
required being that I say nothing about what had taken place. Do 
you wonder that I mourn this man's death ?" 

MAJOR J. N. EDWARDS. 

[Bates County Democrat. '\ 

No death has occurred in the State of Missouri for many years 
that has given so much genuine sorrow as that of the brilliant, 
gifted Edwards. No one had been more widely known in the State, 
and no one had ever been more highly respected, esteemed, loved. 
The great love which all his old comrades evince for him, is the best 
evidence that he was a gallant soldier and a kind and generous com- 
rade. He has been the chief editorial writer on nearly all the lead- 
ing papers of the State. He was gifted indeed. His "Poor 
Corlotta" is the fiuest composition, most splendid word-painting, in 
1 be English language. He has a large number of old comrades in 
this county who deeply lament his death, and none more so than 
the writer of this, who met him nearly twenty years ago when a 
friendship began which had never l^een interrupted. But every one 
was his friend, and he was the friend of every one. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS DEAD. 

[Hig-ginsville Leader. '\ 

Major Edwards was regarded by all Western newspaper men as 
belonging to a brilliant solar journalistic system around which they 
clung with tenacity, and from whose brilliancy they took pride in 
reflncting all the radiance that was in their power to obtain. He is 
dead. He has gone to test the realities of an unknown world. 
Journalism has lost a brilliant star, society has lost an illustrious 
member. Democracy an earnest, effectual laborer, and the people a 
true friend. In the hearts of the people who knew him is an aching 
void. In the hearts of those who knew of him, is deep-seated sor- 
row and sincere regret. Every newspaper in the land will contain a 
panegyric of t!iis brave soldier, thorough statesman, editor, his- 
torian, and philanthropist, 

[Missouri Statesman. "l 

Major John N. Edwards, the soldier, author, and journalist is 
dead. Brave, daring, and chivalrous, he loved and was loved by his 
men, and their trust in him was sublime. The record of the 
achievements of Shelby and his men are matters of history, and of 
all of these Edwards was the hero. With Shelby he went to Mexico 
at the close of the Civil War, and there also he made a record to 
which his friends point with pride. Returning home he once more 
sought the printing room, but as a writer, and his pen has given to 



NEVv'SrAPEil TRIBUTES. 215 

the world works that will remain as long as history is read. No 
man in the State was better or more widely known than Major 
Edwards, and he numbered his friends by the thousand, who will 
mourn his death long and sincerely. 

JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Shelbina Dcmocrat.l 
The bright journalist, Major John N. Edwards, died at the 
McCarty House, in Jefferson City, Saturday last, of paralysis. The 
news of an event so unexpected was a sad surprise to the friends of 
the brilliant man throughout the State. When the death was 
announced at the Capitol half of the members of both bodies of the 
Legislature left their seats and gathered in the lobby and adjoining 
rooms. Republicans and Democrats alike expressed the deepest 
sorrow for his sudden and untimely death and the highest sym- 
pathy for his bereaved family. During the recess at noon nothing 
else was talked about among the crowds at the various hotels but 
the death of the brilliant journalist. 

MAJ. JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Waverly Times.} 

The death of this man, so universally esteemed by the people 
and press of this State, is an irreparable loss to journalism, his family, 
and a large circle of friends. He was by general consent termed a 
peculiar man, invested with an originality of thought that painted 
the present with a coloring of the past, whose conceptions of the 
infiuiTe ruled in his just measure of manhood, and whose integrity 
»)f iMirpose was unquestioned. He was a bold and unflinching 
advocate of what he esteemed just, and his judgment was tem- 
nored with charity. That he was more than ordinarily esteemed, 
\? MQ universal testimony of his companions in arms who delight 
to opeak of his utter selfishness, faultless bravery, and many acts of 
kindness on the march,' in the battle and the camp, where he made 
Irieiuis who were proud to march with him to victory or defeat. 
An<l so pisses away a gentle, loving, moving spirit that the world 
] onors only in death. 

HE WAS A BRAVE MAN, 

[Clay County Progress.] 
In the death of John N. Edwards, the State has lost one of its 
purest citizens, the press one of its ablest writers, for he wrote as 
if from inspiration; his words were clean, pure, simple— they carried 
weight with them— such weight as few writer's words carry. Few 
newspaper men cared to cross swords with John N. Edwards. In 
him the nation has lost one of her fairest sons. He battled for right, 
for truth, for justice, and for the prosperity and upbuilding of his 
native land. John N. Edwards was a man in all things. He was 
no backbiter, sneak, coward, vilifier, perjurer— he was a brave man, 
a true man; he spent his whole life in doing good— in fighting for 
the right. The world is better for his having lived in it. 



216 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

THE KNIGHTLIEST OF KNIGHTS. 

[Moberly Monitor.] 

Major Edwards was a man of genius — a genius that glowed like a 
furnace and sparkled like a star. His writings were prose poems ; 
all his conceptions were unique, all his compositions were complete. 
When he finished an article on any favorite theme, he left little to be 
said by others who took the same view. 

His force lay in the energy and harmony of his articles — in the 
vigor of expression, as well as in theuniqueness of conception. His 
pen, like his sword, was always at the command of his friends, when 
those friends advocated a cause he could conscientiously espouse. 
He was as gallant in civil as in warlike times — brave, chivalric, 
never bending the knee topower, never crouching at the feet of pat- 
ronage. Lofty inconception, noble in purpose, poetic in expression, 
and pure in design, his articles dropped from his pen like liquid 
gems, incrusting, hardening, sparkling as they fell. He was the 
knightliest knight that ever poised a lance in the field of journa- 
lism — courageous and fearless, generous and just. He sought 
no advantage, used no artifice, employed no deceit, but met his 
antagonist front to front and steel to steel. He detested shams, 
he hated hypocrisy, he abhorred deceit. What he was on New 
Year's day, the 31st of December found him — always the champion 
of the defenseless, the defender of the weak, the advocate of the 
right as he saw it, the enemy of wrong wherever found. 

MAJOR JOHN N. EDWARDS. 

[Mexico (Mo.) Ledger.} 

This child of genius, who was known by thousands and loved 
by all who knew him, was one of nature's truest noblemen. He 
lived more for his fellows than for himself. Of unflinching con- 
viction, with a hatred for all that was sham, he never put his pen to 
a sentence that did not ring with force and truth. Major Edwards 
was a writer whose work was so distinctively his own that he had 
few equals and no superior throughout the country. Everything to 
which he placed his pen sparkled with a quaint originality that 
filled with interest every sentence that emanated from his wonder- 
ful brain. Many hearts will go out in sorrow at the news of this 
great man's death. His career comes to a close in the zenith of his 
manhood. Beloved and honored he stood in life; revered in his 
memory after death. This genius stood alone among the fellow3 of 
his profession in Missouri, and his presence was their inspirai,:iujQ, 
Those who knew him best regret his death the most; but of all the 
mass whose acquaintance with this king among men was confined to 
a perusal of the powerful and interesting products of his brain, not 
one will hesitate to cast a flower upon his grave, or fail to drop a 
tear to the memory of one who loved the right. 

HE LOVED MISSOURI. 

[Tipton Times.} 

We have stood in the forest and seen the great towering oaks 
felled by the woodman's axe, and, with a crash that awoke thf; 
echoes J it lay prostrate on the earth; as we gazed into vacant bpacu 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 217 

where but a moment before it reared its lofty branches and swayed 
to and fro in the breeze, and surveyed the scars and bruises its fall 
had intlicted upon the surrounding timber, we felt impressed with 
the desolation wrought. Like the fallen oak. Major Edwards'death 
has left a vacancy that can not be filled, and has awakened tender 
and sympathetic expressions of sorrow throughout the State ; and 
like it, bruised and bleeding, bemourn his eL.d. Pictures of the 
most peaceful pastoral scenes, the bitter, invective, withering sar- 
casms, poetic flights, and cold, logical reasoning were frequently 
interspersed in the same article in the most fascinating and effective 
mannei-, until the reader from lazily contemplating the grazing kind 
or listening to the lullaby of -the brook in the meadow, was startled 
by being confronted by some appalling crime. 

He loved Missouri with all the enthusiasm of his nature, and 
labored persistently for her advancement. He knew her brave, 
sturdy, honest people, and few men had the power to touch their 
hearts as he did. To his bereaved family we tender our deeepest 
sympathy. 

[Weston Chronicle.] 

Major Edwards, a title which he gallantly won in the late war, 
was a man of great ability and force of character. As a man and 
journalist his friends and admirers throughout the West, and partic- 
ularly in Missouri, were numbered by legions. In this (Platte) 
county he had hosts of ardent friends, who sincerely mourn the 
departure of their able, warm-hearted, brave, and generous friend. 
His journalistic life was a success beyond even his own expectations. 
By the press, and by all who had perused his peculiarly romantic 
and ably-clad thoughts, he was regarded the equal if not the peer of 
any in Western journalism. His life throughout, as a civilian and 
soldier, was marked by many incidents of determination to accom- 
plish acts of great worth and noble results both to himself and the 
cause which he espoused and loved. In his newspaper career he 
followed no man — every idea he advanced was original, and every 
thought expressed was copied throughout by the press. He was 
honest and fearless, and never published a line which he did not 
believe to be the truth and for which he would not personally 
answer. He was brave and generous in war and fearless and honest 
in civil life, and liberal to a fault, an affectionate husband and a 
kind father, and his death has left a vacancy in Missouri journalism 
that will with difficulty, if ever, be filled, and his death is a calam- 
ity to the press of the State. 

DEATH OF MAJOR EDWARDS- 

[Tarkio Avalanche.] 

It has been truly said by a contemporary of Major Edwards, 
that "no pen but his own should write of a nature like that of the 
deceased journalist." In his character was blended many noble ele- 
ments, embracing qualities that are seldom found grouped in the 
human heart. While brave and impulsive, and ever willing to face 
with unsheathed sword opponents of his sincere convictions, he pos- 
sessed a temperament as beautiful and sublime as a balmy spring 
morning. Although staunch, almost fierce, in his denunciation of 
those who combatted his ideas of propriety, no man could sooner 
drown in the fountain of mercy his resentment than he. While he 
jealously guarded his idols and dealt strong blows in their defense, 



218 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARD?. 

he could admire and indorse the conscientious conviction that 
caused others, whether rightly or -VNTongl}- , to attempt their over- 
throw. It is claimed for him, and we believe justly so, that, despite 
liis devotion to principles, he did not hesitate to denounce insincerity 
and wrong even where they were exercised to further such princi- 
ples. When he indorsed a theory he considered it proper to put on 
his whole armor in its defense. The strategem of war and the 
diplomacy of peace are legitimate elements of success, and they are 
unhesitatingly used, but with Major Edwards, willful and broad 
deception and absolute injustice were never mistaken for these qual- 
ities While an active and intense partisan, he numbered among his 
true friends and ardent admirers the best men of all parties. Such 
persons drop a tear on his bier and remember only his high and 
noble qualities, his unique personality. 



DEATH OF MAJOR EDWARDS. 

[Argentine Repuhlic] 

Major Edwards was a typical American hero, and one of the 
kind wu always loved to read about. He was a man of convictions 
— served through the war on the Confederate side— brave to a fault, 
and one of the most brilliant writers and fighters in the United 
States. 

Major Edwards was a man that made his enemies love and 
respect liini, and what he failed in accc mplisLirg duimg the war 
wiih Ills sword, he spett tbe remainder (f his liie in jrickiig ard 
cauterizing with the sharpest-pointed pen that ever made a scratch 
on paper. Men like Edwards may "fold the drapery of their couch 
around them and lie down to pleasant dreams," but they never, 
never die. And just as long as the muddy waters continue to wash 
the banks of poor old Missouri, the name of Edwards will be an 
evening hearthstone spell and a fadeless memory. 

THE DEATH OF AN HONEST MAN. 

[Kansas City (Kas.) Gazette] 

Thus has passed away one of the shining lights of journalism. 
The pen of Major Eilwards had an iudividuaiity that was all hisown. 
His very soul seemed to creep down his brave right arm and inspire 
the very ink he used. His style was original, highly tigurative and 
orQate,and Republicansas well as Democrats delighted to follow him 
in print. He was an honest man, aud we do not use this word in a 
conventional sense, but in all its width, depth, find breadth. He fol- 
lowed the truth as it came to his soul, and from his standpoint, and 
was a genial friend, a happy husband, and a noble father. 

[Atchison (Kas.) Cliampion.1 

A strange compound was Major John N. Edwards, who died on 
Saturday last at Jefferson City, Missouri. W^e doubt if the West 
has ever produced as brilliant and picturesque a writer as was Major 
Edwards. He was, as a word-painter, a genius. His powers of 
description were marvelous. Evidently his model was Victor Hugo, 
but he was not an imitator. He marshaled his words as a soldier 
does battalions, and the blare of bugles and the roll of drums was in 
taeir onset. 

Personally, he was a kindly, gentle, lovable man, modest as a 



NEWSrAPER TRIBUTES. 219 

womau, terder as a child. He treasured neither wrongs nor hates. 
He was an unselfish friend and a generous opponent, and all who 
knew him well admired and respected him, 

[Barber County (Kas.) Index.^ 

Major John N. Edwards, one of the best known newspaper 
men in Missouri or in the West, died at Jefferson City, Mo., last 
Saturday. Major Edwards was not an ordinary man. His physical 
strength was slight, but he had a large and active brain, a memory 
for names, dates, and faces that was surprising. A friendship was 
never betrayed or voluntarily broken by him. The word friendship 
had a deeper significance with him than with most men. Ten 
thousand who have known him long and well and who appreciate 
nobility of character will grieve over the loss of a true friend, the 
press will regret the loss of one of its most brilliant contributors, and 
the whole State of Missouri will miss an active, progressive, talented 
citizen. 

[Plattsburg (Mo.) Jeffersonian.l 

The death of Major John N. Edwards has created profound 
and genuine sorrow within the entire borders of the State. His 
I)ersonal and mental characteristics were outlined amid his surround- 
ings, like the great peaks in the mountain range. His individualism 
was never merged in his associations. The world admired his 
brilliant genius; his enemies feared his terrific wrath, while his 
friends loved him for his gentle, sweet, and generous spirit that 
shoue always for them. He filled a space in the field of journalism 
which was peculiarly his own, and therefore may never be tilled 
again. 

[Kansas City Live Stock Indicator.'\ 

As a writer for the press, and as an author, he was known to the 
general public, but it was as a man — a man of generous impulses, 
of steadfast, stalwart friendship — that those who knew him inti- 
mately admired. He was a talented writer, imbued with sincerity 
of purpose, despising shams and frauds— in short, one who was 
always found the same yesterday, to-day, and whenever he was met. 
He has gone, but those who knew Major Edwards personally, and 
his acquaintances were his friends, can bear testimony to his nobil- 
ity of character and unswerving fidelity. 

[Marshall (Mo.) Democrat-News.'] 

By his death Missouri loses her most brilliant writer, and the 
journalistic world an editor whose like we ne'er shall see again. No 
man could be gentler to a friend or fiercer to a foe; and in writing 
of one he loved, or of a cause he advocated, he was as gentle as a 
dove and as delicate as a woman; but in denouncing an enemy or 
opposing a measure his pen was a rapier, cutting and thrusting at 
all vulnerable points. His style was all his own; no man can imi- 
tate it, and none can say he copied it from man, alive or dead. 

[Las Vegas (N. M.) OiJtic] 

He was a brilliant, noble, chivalric gentleman, with hands and 
heart unstained by any unclean act. 

With a good education, a copious vocabulary, a vivid imagina- 
tion, fixed convictions, and dauntless courage, John Edwards could 
worry his enemies and gladden the hearts of his friends as few other 
writers west of the Missouri could. 



220 JOHN I^LWMAX EDWARDS 

[Winfield (Kim.) Tdcgi^am.l 

By his death the journalistic profession loses one of its brightest 
liglits. His sentences were full and rounded, and each a glittering, 
intellectual gem. He was versed in ancient history, and few men 
possess the knowledge he possessed of the political situation of the 
Old as well as the New World. Major J. N. Edwards' name is 
engraved on the hearts of thousands, and it will be spoken with 
reverence by coming generations. 

[Emporia (Kan.) Democrat.] 

The death of John N. Edwards removes from the newspaper 
field one of the brightest and keenest writers of the day. 

While many will miss his smooth and forcible paragraphs, those 
who will miss him most are those who knew him as a friend in 
private life. 

[Rocky Mountain (Col.) News.] 

He was one of the ablest writers in the West, and was at all 
times a gentleman. Brave as the legendary lion, Major Edwards 
had a tender heart and was ever ready to relieve distress in any of 
its phases. 

[Liberty (Mo.) Trihune.'] 

The sudden death of Major John N. Edwards recently, at the 
State Capital, was a sad, unexpected blow to his numerous friends 
and acquaintances throughout the West. His death was a great loss 
to tht\ profession to which he belonged, and the State of Missouri, 
which he h^ved so well. 

[Lamar (Mo.) Democrat.'] 

The death of Major Edwards of the Kansas City Times has 
caused sorrow wherever he was known or heard of. lo know him 
was to like him; to know him well was to love him. If you were his 
enemy you would but admire him. As a friend, he would do more 
and go further than anyone else, he would make more sacrifices than 
an}^ other friend, he was true as steel, and he never was known to 
quail in times of danger. 

[Rich Hill (Mo.) Beview.] 

Over the grave of John N. Edwards we pause to drop a tear of 
sympathy and love. He was a true child of genius, a writer, his- 
torian, and poet. In all the w^arpand woof of his nature the com 
merci.il had no place. He was no utilitarian, and in this time and 
age could not receive the appreciation due him. Goodness was 
enshrined within his heart and from this fountain flowed love and 
devotion, bravery and chivalry, and all the attributes of a great soul. 
There was, there will be, but one John N. Edwards. 

[Tipton (Mo.) Times,] 

Major John N. Edwards is gone. His warm, sympathetic heart 
is still; his tender blue eyes are curtained and dark. As a man, he 
possessed the best attributes of the human heart. Honest, brave, 
gentle, modest, unflinching in his fidelity to his friends, he stood 
forth in the full measure of manhood and commanded the highest 
admiration of all. But it was as an editor that he reached his 
highest grandeur. His style wasimitable, 

[Richmond (Mo.) Payitc.] 
He was one of the best-known men in Missouri. Brave, bril- 



NEWSPAPER TtllBUTES. 221 

liant, chivalric, steadfast in his friecdships, he indirectly exerted a 
wonderful influence on the people, and left behind him a name that 
will live in history as long as time shall last. His newspaper articles 
have been more admired and copied than those of any other writer 
in this country, and the fraternity loses its best and most brilliant 
star in his demise. 

[Excelsior Springs (Mo.) Herald.J 
It was with no little sadness we learned of the sudden death 
of our esteemed friend. Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas 
City Times. In the death of John N. Edwards, Missouri has lost 
one of her most valuable citizens and journalism a most inimitable 
writer. No living writer wielded a more felicitous pen or knew 
better how to touch every chord in the human heart. He was the 
Nestor of Western journalism. 

[Odessa Democrat.'] 
The death of Major John N, Edwards, which occurred at Jeffer- 
son City on last Saturday, has caused universal regret throughout 
the State. Political friend and opponent alike express the great loss 
sustained by his unexpected death. His was a brilliant pen and a 
warm heart that was touched with the tenderest sympathy for all 
that were distressed or in need. 

[Fort Scott (Kan.) Tribune.'] 
The death o. Major J. N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times, 
is a severe loss to journalism in the West. Major Edwards was one 
of the most caustic and incisive editorial writers of his time. He 
was an accurate observer of events, possessed a fund of historical and 
classical knowledge scarcely ever attained by current writers, and 
withal a happy faculty of making friends and retaining them. 

[Moberly (Mo.) Monito7\] 

Few writers of the West were better posted than Major John N. 
Edwards, the knight errant of political journalism. In his death 
journalism has lost a jewel, society an ornament, and humanity a 
friend. It is with pride that the writer of this article can say, He 
was my friend. 

[Atchison (Kan.) Globe.] 

John N. Edwards, famous as a soldier and editor, died at Jef- 
ferson City on Saturday at the age of 51. A book might be 
written of this man; of his brave deeds, his big heart, his gentle 
nature, his native modesty and unselfishness, and his wonderful 
charm as a writer. 

[Holton (Kan.] Record.] 

Major John N. Edwards, editor of the Kansas City Times, died 
suddenly in Jefferson City, Mo., on Saturday. He was an original 
and unique writer, and whatever came from his pen was clothed 
with the adornment of imagery and romance. 

[Hamilton, (Mo.) Nexes-Graphic.] 

The announcement last Saturday of the death of Major John N. 
Edwards was a great surprise and sad news to the many thousands 
of friends and admirers of the deceased throughout the State, A 
braver, truer, or nobler man than John N. Edwards never lived. 

[Cass Count J' (Mo.) Democrat.] 
Major John N. Edwards, of The Kansas City Times, died in 



222 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Jefferson City last week. He was one of the most brilliant and 
versatile writers in the country, and few men in the State had more 
or warmer friends. 

[Wichita (Kan.) Jouriial.'} 

Major John N. Edwards, the well-known editorial writer of 
The Kansas City Times, died suddenly at Jefferson City Satur- 
day. He was noted as one of the most forcible writers in the West 
and a man of strong convictions. 

[Mexico (Mo.) Lcclgcr.l 

The death of Major John N. Edwards, which occurred at 
Jefferson City Saturday morning, spreads a gloom throughout the 
State. This child of genius, who was known by thousands, and 
loved by all who knew him, was one of nature's truest noblemen. 

[Hoiton (Kan.) Signal.'^ 

Major John N. Edwards, of Kansas City, one of the brightest 
and most versatile writers in the West, died at Jefferson City last 
Saturday. He was a great, generous man, and had many friends. 

[Clinton (Mo.) Democrat.'] 

In the death of Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City 
Times, the press has lost one of its brightest jewels, humanity one of 
its bravest and truest defenders. 

[Topeka (Knn.) CapitaL^ 

Major J. N. Edwards, whose untimely death at Jefferson City 
occurred on Saturday, was an elegant and forcible writer, gifted 
with a mind of no ordinary quality. 

[Bi-eckenridg-e (Mo.) BuUetin.l 

Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times, is no more. 
He was one of the most brilliant writers and agreeable of gentlemen 
in the United States. 

[Topeka (Kan.) Democrat.] 

Major John N. Edwards, one of the most brilliant editorial 
writers in the West, died at Jefferson City on Saturday, of heart 
affection. 

[Neosho Times.'] 

One of Missouri's brightest journalists and best men has passed 
from this earthly life to a happier one, that will never end. The 
State has lost a true and frank and generous man, who, by his fine 
abilities and straightforward force of character, by his high sense 
of honor and unswerving faithfulness to all his convictions, and by 
his noble traits of soul, had gained honor, influence, and troops of 
friends. 

[Cooper County Leader.] 

John N. Edwards the brilliant journalist is dead. In the zenith 
of his manhood he was stricken with paralysis, and in a few short 
hours he yielded up a life in which every Missourianhadan interest 
— courageous and generous to a fault, kind hearted and gentle as a 
woman. At an early age he was thrown upon his own resources. 
Inspired by genius and ambition, he began at once to climb the dizzy 
heights of "fame. As a journalistic writer, John N. Edwards had but 
few, if any, equals. He possessed to an eminent degree the happy 
fa-culty of expressing his thoughts with a brilliancy of diction that 
was at once inimitable. Thinking and caring more for the interest 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 223 

of his people than for himself, he ofttimes sacrificed his personal 
interests for the advancement of his friends. 
[Parkville Independent.'] 

John N. Edwards, one of the best known and, perhaps, most 
influential newspaper men of Missouri, died at Jeiferson City on last 
Saturday. As a newspaper writer, he had been before the people of 
Missouri for many years, and thereis but little doubt that he wasthe 
most widely known of any editorial writer of which our State could 
boast. 

[Kendall County (Kan.) Banner.'] 

Major John N. Edwards, of Missouri, died at Jefferson City on 
Saturday of last week, and has been laid to rest by loving hands and 
with sorrowful hearts. He was a high type of Missouri's noblest 
manhood, and the earth has not produced its superior. As an author 
and editor, he has left a name that will live through ages; and as a 
friend, comrade, and brother, his memory will be kept green in the 
hearts of thousands of his fellow rmen. 

[Hill City Democrat.] 

Major J. N. Edwards, of Kausas City, died last Friday at Jef- 
ferson City, Mo., with heart disease. Major Edwards was a promi- 
nent journalist and writer. Above all, he was a brave, true hearted 
man, and his death is sincerely mourned by all who knew him. 
[Pleasant Hill Local] 

He was a gifted and brilliant writer, anu w^as the author of 
several valuable works. He was a liberal and large-hearted man, 
beloved by all who knew him, ever ready to lend a helping baud to 
the needy and unfortunate, to take sides with the weak against the 
strong, to shield the wronged and oppressed. His death will cause 
the deepest sorrow throughout this country and wherever he was 
known. 

[London Democrat.] 

He was brave — he knew no fear — even ia tlie sad ordeal that 
we must all meet he was still the same gallant John N. Edwards. 
Death had no terrors for him. He was an exceptional man in many 
respects. He never courted trouble, but always met it boldly. 
His whole life was an open book; his actions were above suspicion. 
Wealth had no charms for him except so far as he could do good 
with it. He was one man in a million. As a writer, he had no 
superior in this State. He was full of personal magnetism. Asa 
soldier, he led and never followed; as a man, he wasthe peer of any; 
as a friend, none could be warmer or nearer; as a newspaperman, 
there were but few who could equal him. 

[Newton (Kan.) Republican.] 
The particulars of the death of Major John N. Edwards, "vho 
was chief editorial writer of the Kansas City Times, are given on 
first page. He was a Confederate officer, and for twenty years he 
has been a unique figure in Western journalism. He had a style and 
richness of expression peculiarly his own and bearing the impress 
of an uncommon personality. 

[Osag-e City (Kan.) Free Press.] 
Major John N. Edwards, one of the most brilliant editorial 
writers in the West, died in Jefferson City on Saturday of heart 
affection. At the time of his death he was on the staff of the Kan- 
sas City Times. 

[Miami (Mo.) News.] 
The sudden death of that brilliant journalist and nobleman, 



224 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

Major John N. Edwards, on Saturday last, at JeiTerson City, casts a 
shadow of sorrow over the whole State. His editorial writing 
attracted the attention of the country. It was inimitable and unsur- 
passed. 

[Jonesport Gazette.] 

Major John N. Edwards, well known throughout Missouri, 
died suddenly at Jefferson City on Saturday. He was a brilliant 
journalist and wrote in a style all his own. 

[King-man County (Kan.) Democrat.l 

Major Edwards was one of the foremost men of Missouri, and 
lost no opportunity to serve his State. His early death will be 
mourned by the thousands all over the West who esteem men by the 
good they do rather than by the wealth and fame they obtain. 

[Gallatin (Mo.) Democrat.] 

Major John N. Edwards was one of Missouri's brilliant journal- 
ists, and many mourn that the pen has dropped from his hand ere 
the intellect that controlled it had reached the zenith of its power. 
He was a man of kind thoughts, mighty hopes, and gentle deeds, but 
life, with its activities, bringing the fruits of honor and joy, has 
closed, and he slumbers with the dead, leaving to his friends a mem- 
ory as fragrant with the sweet amenities of life as the perfume 
exhaled by the roses of May which loving hands will scatter upon 
his grave. 

[Mexico Intelligencer.] 

There were few men in the State better known or more 
universally respected than Major Edwards. He was a man of geu- 
erous impulses, true to his friends under any and all circumstances. 
As a newspaper writer, he had a style peculiarly his own, and his 
articles commanded wide-spread admiration. No whisper of sus- 
picion was ever raised against his personal integrity. He died poor 
save in the respect and affections of those who knew him best. 

Major Edwards was one of the readiest writers and brilliant 
newspaper men in the West, with a style peculiarly his own, not 
excelled anywhere. 

Major Edwards was as bold and resolute in his positions that 
he believed to be right as a lion, still was kind and gentle as a child, 
never bearing resentments, no matter how badly misrepresented or 
traduced. In his friendships he was as true as the needle to the 
pole, and never allowed outside clamor or censure to swerve him a 
particle. — The Brunswicker. 

[Linneus Bulletin.] 

The sudden death of Major Jno. N. Edwards, at Jefferson City, 
last Saturday, has called forth an expression of sorrow and regret 
throughout the country. He was one of the most brilliant journal- 
ists in the State, and had been for years one of the acknowledged 
leaders of the Democratic party. His talents and his virtues have 
won for him a warm place in the hearts of the people of Missouri. 
They loved him and his memory they will ever cherish. 

ICentral Missourian.] 

Major Edwards was the embodiment of most of the noble char- 
acteristics that go to make all that is admirable in manhood. John 
N. Edwards needs no introduction to our readers, many of them 
having shared with him the hardships and dangers of the bivouac 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 225 

and battle-field, but we are sorry that want of space prevents our 
giving a more extended notice of his life and death. We will try 
and do so in our next issue. 

[Paola (Kan.) Bepublican,'i 

The death of Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City 
Times, at Jefferson City, Saturday morning, closed the career of a 
talented, able editor who was the most popular and widely -known 
newspaper man in the West. His death is deeply mourned by all 
who knew him, and more particularly by his Missouri friends, who 
knew him best and to whom he was most endeared. 

[Las Vegas (N. M.) Optic] 
Kansas City and all the Democrats in Missouri, with a large Re- 
publican contingent, are mourning the death of John N. Edwards. 
We shall not soon look upon his like again. 

[Dickinson Co. (Kan.) News.} 

Major John N. Edwards, probably the most picturesque figure 
in Missouri, died at Jefferson City last Saturday. He was with 
Shelby in the Confederate service, and was a beau ideal of a daring, 
chivalric soldier. His style was fervent and poetical, and at all 
times interesting. He was a gentleman in the strictest meaning of 
that term, and his death will be widely regretted. 

[Butler Timcs.l 
The sad and unexpected death of Major John N. Edwards was 
received in this city by his many friends with profound sorrow. He 
was the most brilliant newspaper writer in the State. 

[Emporia (Kan.) Ncws.l 
His style was entirely his own, and abounded in rhetorical fig- 
ures, which fell from his pen as words from a good talker. He was 
an intense Democrat, and always wrote from conviction. 

[Sweet Springs Herald.l 
As a journalist, he possessed rare attainments, and ranked with 
the first of the land. He had many warm personal friends over the 
entire State, who are shocked at his untimely death. He was a true 
friend, a chivalrous enemy, a noble man 

[Cole Co. Democrat] 

The sudden death of Major John JST. Edwards, which occurred 
in this city on the 4th instant, was a severe shock to his very many 
friends and admirers throughout the State. Perhaps no man in the 
State commanded a wider circle of friends than he. Major Edwards 
was a brilliant writer, and had occupied a prominent position in the 
journalistic field for many years. He was a brilliant man, a true 
friend, and his death leaves a vacancy not easily filled and univer- 
sally regretted. 

[Springfield Leader.'[ 

He was talented, courageous, gentle, and devoted. His honor 
was never tarnished. He knew no such words as "mine" and 
"thine." His boundless librality and charity kept him poor in the 
goods of the world but rich in acts of beneficence. In politics he 
was positive, uncompromising, and unrelenting where a principle 
was involved, but after the battle and victory won there was no 



0,26 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

exultation in bis heart or in his acts. In his death, the press of Mis- 
souri loses its brightest light and the Democratic party its ablest 
champioii. 

[Burlington Republican.'] 

The deatli of Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Time3, 
removes the most terse, forcible, and brilliant writer in the West. 
There was a peculiar individuality about his work that anyone 
familiar with it could readily recognize. His figures of speech were 
happily selected apt and striking, and his diction in every respect 
elegant. He was an ex-Coufederate who served under Shelby, and 
WiiS always an ardent Democrat, but his work as a journalist was 
noue the less admirable and worthy of imitation by those who seek 
to attain excellence. 

[Huron HeadUght.] 

We have for a long time regarded Major Edwards its one of the 
most vigorous editorial writers in the country. He was a fineclass- 
ical scholar, and many brilliant paragraphs flowed from his ready 
pen. 

[Blue Springs Herald.] 

In the death of Major Edwards, the people have lost a friend. 
He was ever on the side of the laborer, the poor, the needy, and the 
patriot. He had wonderful powers of expression and his descrip- 
tions were unsurpassed. His mind was a storehouse of facts 
gathered from extensive reading and observation, possessing a 
wontlerfully retentive memory. He was terrific in controversy, 
discharging a whole battery of shot . and shell that demolishes the 
stoutest. He was exact in honesty and fair-dealing, a choice friend, 
and a noble man, and is a great loss to the Democratic party, that 
cannot be easily gained. 

[Slater Riistler.] 

The death of Major John Edwards is mourned in every house- 
hold throughout the State. He w^as a man whom all loved and 
admired for his high character, as a man, soldier, citizen, and journal- 
ist. As a journalist, we may look in vain for another who can fill 
his place in the hearts of the people of Missouri. 

[Salina (Kan.) Herald.] 

Major Edwards was the ablest editorial writer west of the great 
Mississippi River. As a political writer, he had no superior and few 
equals anywhere. Bold and fearless in the expression of his opinion, 
his editorials were read by thousands of readers with profit and 
delight. 

[Milan Standard.] 

Major J. N. Edwards died at Jefferson City on the 5th. With 
Mr. Edwards passes away a brilliant journalist, and one whose 
death makes sad many households in the State of Missouri, 

[Brookfield Argus.] 
It will be a long time before his place will be filled. Major 
Edwards had many admirers and friends throughout the State. 
Unlike any other journalist in the West, his style was original and 
unique. His life and associations with his fellow men was full of 
love and tenderness, and his writings were like his life. 

[Meade Center Democrat.] 
He was one of the-best known newspaper men in the West. 



NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. 227 

The Story of his life reads like a romance. He was a brave soldier, 
an author of ability, and a leader in journalist' circles 

[Albany Republican . ] 
John N. Edwards was one of the most brilliant and successful 
editorial writers in the West, and perhaps one of the most intensely 
partisan. He was always a brave man, and carried with him 
untlinchingly the courage of his convictions. 

[Lathrop Monitor.^ 
He was one of the most brilliant writers in the State and had 
won a national reputation as an author. 

[Soldier City (Kan.) Tribune.} 
Mr. Edwards was a great writer, and his death ends the career 
of one of Missouri's brightest and ablest journalists. 

[lola (Kan.) Republican.] 
One of the most striking personalities and altogether the most 
picturesque and original writer in the West passed from earth last 
{Saturday when Major John N. Edwards, of the Kansas City Times, 
breathed his last. 

[Selbina TorcMight.'i 

The death of Major John N. Edwards, which occurred last 
Saturday at Jefferson City, removes from the ranks of journalism 
one of Missouri's brightest and most vigorous writers. He was a 
gallant soldier, an honest, fearless man, and a true friend. 

[Lee's Summit Journal.} 

Major John N. Edwards, one of the brightest journalists of the 
country, died suddenly at Jefferson City Saturday. He was a man 
of noble and generous impulses, the idol of his old army comrades, 
Lnd a writer who had no imitators. 

[Rich Hill Enterprise.] 

Major J. N. Edwards, one of the brightest and most noted 
journalists in Missouri, died at Jefferson City Saturday morning. 

[Howard County Democrat.] 
Major Edwards was a brilliant journalist; every line he penned 
sparkled like a jewel. Brave and courageous, the press of the 
State has not only lost its most brilliant member, butthe Demo- 
cratic party a wise counselor. 

[Clinton Democrat.] 

No words of ours can add to the many laurels he has won and 
so modestly and appropriately worn. If faults he had, we all have 
them, let us forget them, and remember only his merits and 
his virtues, of which he had more than fall to the lot of many 
mortals. 

[Rich Hill Review.] 

Never again shall his clarion call be heard in the ranks of jour- 
nalism summoning up the chivalry of human nature to do battle for 
honor and glory. His voice always heard in behalf of his con- 
science, giving expresssion to the good, the true, and the beautiful, 
is silent forever, but his memory will live in the hearts of all true 
Missourians, and will be like some rare painting from the hand of 
genius that time, while softening the tints and outlines, will not 
dim but prove an inspiration and a legacy to generations yet 
unborn. 



228 JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS. 

[Hope (Kas.,) Herald.] 
Major John N, Bdwards, the well-known editorial writer on the 
Kansas City Times, died last Saturday. He was a fine writer and a 
big, noble-hearted man, and the profession, in his death, loses one of 
its best and brightest members. 

[Palmyra Spectator.] 

Major Edwards was well known throughout the State as one of 
the most brilliant and graceful writers that ever graced the tripod, 
and there is deep sorrow in the hearts of the multitudes, who loved 
and admired him for his many noble qualities and rare talents, over 
the news of his death. To the people he was ever a friend, coun- 
selor, and guide, and to the Democracy a tower of strength. Few 
men will be missed more than Major Edwards, and the expressions 
of sorrow manifested on all hands at his demise indicate the noble 
character of the man and the warm place he held in the hearts of 

the people. 

[Christian County BeiJiihlican.] 

The most brilliant writer Missouri ever nurtured to greatness 
has passed away. The master of a style of vivid splendor, he, 
like Goldsmith, " touched nothing which he did not adorn." His 
strangely captivating style glittered with metaphors that were 
drawn from his reminiscences of the stormy but entrancing days 
when the great conflict filled men's hearts with emotion and 
elevated their minds with thoughts of epic grandeur. Of rhetoric. 
Major Edwards was a very lord, painting in the chambers of his 
imagery pictures of vermilion and gold. In his perfect diction 
there was always present that stimulus, that power of opening 
vistas vast, as we see in dreams, which it is the privilege of genius 
only to possess. Many a Missourian must feel that when John N. 
Edwards died it was as if the bright star Aldebaran had faded 
forever from the sight of men. 



SHELBrS 



Expedition to ]\/^exico 



UNWRITTEN LEAF 



THE WAR 



BY 

John N. Edwards 

AUTHOR OF "SHELBY AND HIS MEN," ETC., ETC. 



Kansas City, Mo. : 
JENNIE EDWARDS, PUBLISHER 

1889 



COPYRIGHTED 
JENNIE EDWARDS 



SHELBY'S 

EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

AN UNWKITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 
CHAPTER I. 

" They rode a troop of bearded men. 
Rode two and two out from the town. 
And some were blonde and some were brown, 
And all as brave as Sioux; but when 
From San Bennetto south the line 
That bound them to the haunts of men 
Was passed, and peace stood mute behind 
And streamed a banner to the wind 
The world knew not, there was a sign 
Of awe, of silence, rear and van. 
Men thought who never thought before; 
I heard the clang and clash of steel. 
From sword at hand or spur at heel. 
And iron feet, but nothing more. 
Some thought of Texas, some of Maine, 
But more-of rugged Tennessee— 
Of scenes in Southern vales of wine. 
And scenes in Northei-n hills of pine. 
As scenes they might not meet again; 
And one of Avon thought, and one 
Thought of an isle beneath the sun. 
And one of Rowley, one the Rhine, 
And one turned sadly to the Spree." 

Joaquin Miller. 
What follows may read like a romance; it was the saddest reality 
this life could offer to many a poor fellow who now sleeps in a for- 
eign and forgotten grave somewhere in the tropics— somewhere 
between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Pacific Ocean. 

The American has ever been a wayward and a truant race. 
There are passions which seem to belong to them by some strange 
fatality of birth or blood. In every port, under all flags, upon every 



232 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

island, shipwrecked and stranded upon the barren or golden shores 
of adventure, Americans can be found, taking fate as it comes — a 
devil-may-care, reckless, good-natured, thrifty and yet thriftless 
race, loving nothing so well as their country except an enterprise 
full of wonder and peril. Board a merchant vessel in mid-ocean 
and there is an American at the wheel. Steer clear of a lean, lank, 
rakish-looking craft beating up from the windward toward Yuca- 
tan, and overboard as a greeting, comes the full roll of an Anglo- 
Saxon voice, half -familiar and half piratical. The angular features 
peer out from under sombreros, bronzed and brown though they 
may be, telling of faces seen somewhere about the cities — eager* 
questioning faces, a little sad at times, yet always stern enough for 
broil or battle. They cruise in the foreign rivers and rob on the 
foreign shores. Whatever is uppermost finds ready hands. No 
guerrillas are more daring than American guerrillas; the church has 
no more remorseless despoilers; the women no more ardent and 
faithless lovers; the haciendas no vaore, sturdy defenders; the wine 
cup no more devoted proselytes; the stranger armies no more heroic 
soldiers; and the stormy waves of restless emigration nomoresinster 
waifs, tossed hither and thither, swearing in all tongues — rude, 
boisterous, dangerous in drink, ugly at cards, learning revolver-craft 
quickest and surest, and dying as they love to die, game to the 
last. 

Of such a race came all who had preceded the one thousand Con- 
federates led by Shelby into Mexico. He found many of them 
there. Some he hung and some he recruited, the last possibly not 
the best. 

The war in the Trans-Mississippi Department had been a holiday 
parade for some; a ceaseless battle and raid for others. Shelby's 
division of Missourians was the flower of this army. He had formed 
and fashioned it upon an ideal of his own. He had a maxim, 
borrowed from Napoleon without knowing it, which was: "Young 
men for war." Hence all that long list of boy heroes who died 
before maturity from Pocahontas, Arkansas, to Newtonia, Mis- 
souri, died in that last march of 1864, the stupidest, wildest, 
wantonest, wickedest march ever made by a general who had a 
voice like a lion and a spring like a guinea pig. Shelby did the 
fighting, or, rather, what he could of it. After Westport, eight 
hundred of these Missourians were buried in a night. The sun that 
set at Mine Creek set as well upon a torn and decimated division, 
bleeding at every step, but resolute and undaunted. That night the 
dead were not buried. 

Newtonia came after — the last battle west of the Mississippi 
river. It was a prairie fight, stern, unforgiving, bloody beyond all 
comparison for the stakes at issue, fought far into the night, and 
won by him who had won so many before that he had forgotten to 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 333 

count them. General Blunt is rich, alive and a brave man and a 
happy man over in Kansas. He will bear testimony again, as he 
has often done before, that Shelby's lighting at Newtonia surpassed 
any he had ever seen. Blunt was a grim fighter himself, be it 
remembered, surpassed by none who ever held the border for the 
Union. 

The retreat southward from Newtonia was a famine. The 

flour first gave out, then the meal, then the meat, then the medicines. 

The recruits suffered more in spirit than in flesh, and fell out by 

the wayside to die. The old soldiers cheered them all they could 

and tightened their own sabre belts. Hunger was a part of their 

rations. The third day beyond the Arkansas river, hunger found 

an ?^\^— smallpox. In cities and among civilized beings this is 

fearful. Among soldiers, and, therefore, machines, it is but another 

name for death. They faced it as they would a line of battle, 

waiting for the word. That came in this wise: Shelby took every 

wagon he could lay his hands upon, took every blanket the dead 

men left, and improvised a hospital. While life lasted in him, a 

soldier was never abandoned. There was no shrinking; each 

detachment in detail mounted guard over the terrible cortege— 

protected it, camped with it, waited upon it, took its chances as it 

took its rest. Discipline and humanity fraternized. The weak 

hands of the one were intertwined with the bronzed hands of the 

other. Even amid the pestilence there was poetry. 

The gaps made in the ranks were ghastly. Many whom the 
bullets had scarred and spared were buried far from soldierly 
bivouacs or battle-fields War has these species of attacks, all the 
more overwhelming because of their inglorious tactics. Fever can 
not be fought, nor that hideous leprosy which kills after it has 
defaced. 

One day the end came, after much suffering and heroism and 
devotion. A picture like this, however, is only painted that one 
may understand the superb organization of that division which was 
soon to be a tradition, a memory, a grim war spirit, a thing of gray 
and glory forevermore. 

After the ill-starred expedition made to Missouri in 1864, the 
Trans-Mississippi army went to sleep. It numbered about fifty 
thousand soldiers, rank and file, and had French muskets, French 
cannon, French medicines, French ammunition and French gold. 
Matamoras, Mexico, was a port the Government could not or did 
not blockade, and from one side of the river there came to it all 
manner of supplies, and from the other side all kinds and grades of 
cotton. This dethroned king had transferred its empire from the 
Carolinas to the Gulf, from the Tombigbee to the Rio Grande. It 
was a fugitive king, however, with a broken sceptre and a merC' 
tricious crown. Afterward it was guillotined. 



234 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Gen. E. Kirby Smith was the Commander-in-Chief of this 
department, who had under him as lieutenants, Generals John B. 
Magruder and Simon B. Buckner. Smith was a soldier turned 
exhorter. It is not known that he preached; he prayed, however, 
and his prayers, like the prayers of the wicked, availed nothing. 
Other generals in other parts of the army prayed, too, notably 
StonewallJackson, but between the two there was this difference: 
The first trusted to his prayers alone; the last to his prayers and 
his battalions. Faith is a fine thing in the parlor, but it never yet 
put grape-shot in an empty caisson, and pontoon bridges over a 
full fed river. 

As I have said, while the last act in the terrible drama was being 
performed east of the Mississippi river, all west of the Mississippi 
was asleep. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House awoke 
them. Months, however, before the last march Price had made into 
Missouri, Shelby had an interview with Smith. They talked of 
many things, but chiefly of the war. Said Smith: 

" What would you do in this emergency, Shelby?" 

" I would," was the quiet reply, " march every single soldier of 
my command into Missouri — infantry, artillery, cavalry, all; I would 
fight there and stay there. Do not deceive yourself. Lee is over- 
powered; Johnston is giving up county after county full of our corn 
and wheat fields; Atlanta is in danger, and Atlanta furnishes the 
powder; the end approaches; a supreme effort is necessary; the eyes 
of the East are upon the West, and with fifty thousand soldiers such 
as yours you can seize St. Louis, hold it, fortify it, and cross over 
into Illinois. It would be a diversion, expanding into a campaign — 
a blow that had destiny in it." 

Smith listened, smiled, felt a momentary enthusiasm, ended the 
interview, and, later, sent eight thousand cavalry under a leader 
who marched twelve miles a day and had a wagon train as long as 
the tail of Plantamour's comet. 

With the news of Lee's surrender there came a great paralysis. 
What had before been only indifference was now death. The army 
was scattered throughout Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, but in the 
presence of such a calamity it concentrated as if by intuition. Men 
have this feeling in common with animals, that imminent danger 
brings the first into masses, the last into herds. Buffalo fight in a 
circle, soldiers form square. Smith came up from Shreveport, 
Louisiana, to Marshall, Texas. Shelby went from Fulton, Arkan- 
sas, to the same place. Hither came also other generals of note, 
such as Hawthorne, Buckner, Preston and Walker. Magruder 
tarried at Galveston, watching with quiet eyes a Federal fleet beating 
in from the Gulf. In addition to this fleet there were also transports 
blue with uniforms and black with soldiers. A wave of negro troops 
'wa.a about to inundate the department, 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 235 

Some little reaction had begun to be manifested since the news 
of Appomattox. The soldiers, breaking away from the iron bands 
of a rigid discipline, had held meetings pleading against surrender. 
They knew Jefferson Davis was a fugitive, westward bound, and 
they knew Texas was filled to overflowing with all kinds of supplies 
and war munitions. In their simple hero faith they believed that 
the struggle could still be maintained. Thomas C. Reynolds was 
Governor of Missouri, and a truer and braver one never followed 
the funeral of a dead nation his commonwealth had revered and 
respected. 

This Marshall conference had a two-fold object : first to ascer- 
tain the imminence of the danger, and, second to provide against 
it. Strange things were done there. The old heads came to the 
young one ; the infantry yielded its precedence to the cavalry; 
The major-general asked the advice of the brigadier. There was 
no rank beyond that of daring and genius. A meeting was held, 
at which all were present except General Smith. The night was a 
Southern one, full of balm, starlight andflowerodor. The bronzed 
men were gathered quietly and sat awhile, as Indians do who wish 
to smoke and go upon the war-path. The most chivalrous scalp- 
lock that night was worn by Buckner. He seemed a real Red Jacket 
in his war-paint and feathers. Alas ! why was his tomahawk dug 
up at all ? Before the ashes were cold about the embers of the 
council-fire, it was buried. 

Shelby was called on to speak first, and if his speech aston- 
ished his audience, they made no sign : 

" The army has no confidence in General Smith," he said, slowly 
and deliberately, "and for the movements proposed there must be 
chosen a leader whom they adore. We should concentrate every- 
thing upon the Brazos river. We must fight more and make fewer 
speeches. Fugitives from Lee and Johnson will join us by thou- 
sands. Mr. Davis is on his way here ; he alone has the right to treat 
for surrender. Our intercouse with the French is perfect, and fifty 
thousand men with arms in their hands have overthrown, ere now, 
a dynasty, and established a kingdom. Every step to the Rio 
Grande must be fought over, and when the last blow has been struck 
that can be struck, we will march into Mexico and re-instate Juarez 
or espouse Maximilian. General Preston should go at once to Mar- 
shal Bazaine, and learn from him whether it is peace or war. Sur- 
render is a word neither myself nor my division understand." 

This bold speech had its effect. 

" Whd will lead us?" the listeners demanded. 

"Who else but Buckner," answered Shelby. "He has rank, 
reputation, the confidence of the army, ambition, is a soldier of 
fortune, and will take his chances like the rest of us. Which one 
of us can read the future and tell the kind of an empire our swords 
may carve out?" 



236 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Buckner assented to the plan, so did Hawtliorne, Walker, Pres- 
ton and Reynolds. The compact was sealed with soldierly alacrity, 
each general answering for his command. But who was to inform 
General Smith of this sudden resolution — this semi-mutiny in the 
very whirl of the vortex? 

Again it was Shelby, the daring and impetuous. 

"Since there is some sorrow about this thing, gentlemen," he 
said, ' ' and since men who mean business must have boldness, I will 
ask the honor of presenting this ultimatum to General Smith. It is 
some good leagues to the Brazos, and we must needs make haste. 
I shall march to-morrow to the nearest enemy and attack him. 
Have no fear. If I do not overthrow him I will keep him long 
enough at bay to give time for the movement southward." 

Immediately after the separation, General Shelby called upon 
General Smith. There were scant words between them. 

"The army has lost confidence in you, General Smith." 
'I know it." 

" They do not wish to surrender." 

" Nor do I. What would the army have ?" 

" Your withdrawal as its direct commander, the appointment of 
General Buckner as its chief, its concentration upon the Brazos 
river, and war to the knife, 'General Smith." 

The astonished man rested his head upon his hands in mute sur- 
prise. A shadow of pain passed rapidly over his face, and he gazed 
out through the night as one who was seeking a star or beacon for 
guidance. Then he arose as if in pain and came some steps nearer 
the young conspirator, whose cold, calm eyes had never wavered 
through it all. 

" What do you advise, General Shelby?" 

" Instant acquiescence." 

The order was written, the command of the army was given to 
Buckner, General Smith returned to Shreveport, each officer galloped 
off to his troops, and the first act in the revolution had been finished. 
The next was played before a different audience and in another 
theater. 



CHAPTEE II. 

Gen. Simon Boltvah Buckner was a soldier handsome enough 
to have been Murat. His uniform was resplendent. Silver stars 
glittered upon his coat, his gold lace shone as if it had been washed 
by the dew and wiped with the sunshine, his sword was equaled only 
in brightness by the brightness of its scabbard, and when upon the 
streets women turned to look at him, saying, ''That is a hero with a 
form like a war-god." General Buckner also wrote poetry. Some 
of his sonnets were set to music in scanty Confederate fashion, and 
when the red June roses were all ablow and the night at peace 
with bloom and blossom, they would float out from open case- 
ments as the songs of mJnstrel or troubadour. Sir Philip Sidney 
was also a poet who saved the English army at Gravelines, and 
though mortally wounded and dying of thirst, he bade his esquire 
give to a suffering comrade the water brought to cool his own 
parched lips. From all of which it was argued that the march to 
the Brazos would be but as the calm before the hurricane— that in the 
crisis the American poet would have devotion equal to the English 
poet. From the Marshall conference to the present time, however, 
the sky has been without a war cloud, the lazy cattle have multiplied 
by all the water-courses, and from pink to white the cotton has 
bloomed and blown and been harvested. 

Before Shelby reached his division, away up on the prairies about 
Kaufman, news came that Smith had resumed command of the 
army, and that a flag-of-truce boat was ascending Red river to 
Shreveport. This meant surrender. Men whose rendezmus has 
been agreed upon, and whose campaigns have been marked out, had 
no business with flags of truce. By the end of the next day's march 
Smith's order of surrender came. It was very brief and very com- 
prehensive. The soldiers were to be concentrated at Shreveport, 
were to surrender their arms and munitions of war, were to take 
paroles and transportation wherever the good Federal deity in com- 
mand happened to think appropriate. 

What of Buckner with his solemn promises, his recently con- 
ferred authority, his elegant new uniform, his burnished sword with 
its burnished scabbard, his sweet little sonnets, luscious as straw- 
berries, his swart, soldierly face, handsome enough again for Murat? 
Thinking of his Chicago property, and contemplating the mournful 
fact of having been chosen to surrender the first and the last army 
of the Confederacy. 

237 



238 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Smith's heart failed him when the crisis came. Buckner's heart 
was never fired at all. All their hearts failed them except the 
Missouri Governor's and the Missouri General's, and so the Brazos 
ran on to the sea without having watered a cavalry steed or reflected 
the gleam of a burnished bayonet. In the meantime, however, 
Preston was well on his way to Mexico. Later, it will be seen how 
Bazaine received him, and what manner of a conversation he had 
with the Emperor Maximilian touching Shelby's scheme at the Mar- 
shall conference. 

Two plans presented themselves to Shelby the instant the news 
came of Smith's surrender. The first was to throw his division upon 
Shreveport by forced marches, seize the government, appeal to the 
army, and then carry out the original order of concentration. The 
second was to make all surrender impossible by attacking the 
Federal forces, wherever and whenever he could find them. To 
resolve with him was to execute. He wrote a proclamation destined 
for the soldiers, and for want of better material had it printed upon 
wall paper. It was a variegated thing, all blue and black and red, 
and unique as a circus advertisement. 

" Soldiers, you have been betrayed. The generals whom you 
trusted have refused to lead you. Let us begin the battle again by 
a revolution. Lift up the flag that has been cast down dishonored. 
Unsheath the sword that it may remain unsullied and victorious. 
If you desire it, I will lead ; if you demand it, I will follow. We 
are the army and the cause. To talk of surrender is to be a traitor. 
Let us seize the traitors and attack the enemy. Forward, for the 
South and Liberty!" 

Man proposes and God disposes. A rain came out of the sky 
that was an inundation'even for Texas. All the bridges in the West 
were swept away in a night. The swamps that had been dry land 
rose against the saddle girths. There were no roads, nor any spot 
of earth for miles and miles dry enough for a bivouac. Sleepless 
and undismayed, the brown-bearded, bronzed Missourian toiled on, 
his restless eyes fixed on Shreveport. There the drama was being 
enacted he had struggled like a giant to prevent ; there division after 
division marched in, stacked their arms, took their paroles, and 
were disbanded. When, by superhuman exertions, his command 
had forced itself through from Kaufman to Corsicana, the fugitives 
began to arrive. Smith had again surrendered to Buckner, and 
Buckner in turn had surrendered to the United States. It was useless 
to go forward. If you attack the Federals, they pleaded, you will 
imperil our unarmed soldiers. It was not their fault. Do not hold 
them responsible for the sins of their officers. They were faithful 
to the last, and even in their betrayal they were true to their colors. 

Against such appeals there was no answer. The hour for a cot/p 
d'etat had passed, and from a revolutionist Shelby was about to 



AN tJNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 239 

become an exile. Even in the bitterness of his overthrow he was 
grand. He had been talking to uniformed things, full of glitter 
and varnish and gold lace and measured intonations of speech that 
sounded like the talk stately heroes have, but they were all clay and 
carpet-knights. Saalth faltered, Buckner faltered, other generals, 
not so gay and gaudy, faltered, they all faltered. If war had been 
a woman, winning as Cleopatra, with kingdoms for caresses, the 
lips that sang sonnets would never have kissed her. After the 
smoke cleared away only Shelby and Reynolds stood still in the 
desert — the past a Dead Sea behind them, the future, what — the 
dark? 

One more duty remained to be done. The sun shone, the waters 
had fmbsided, the grasses were green and undulating, and Shelby's 
Missouri Cavalry Division came forth from its bivouac for the last 
time. A call ran down its ranks for volunteers for Mexico. One 
thousand bronzed soldiers rede fair to the front, over them the old 
barred banner, worn now, and torn, and well nigh abandoned. 
Two and two they ranged themselves behind their leader, waiting. 

The good-byes and the partings followed. There is no need to 
record them here. Peace and war have no road in common. Along 
the pathway of one there are roses and thorus; along the pathway 
of the other there are many thorns, with a sprig or two of laurel 
when all is done. Shelby chose the last and marched away with 
his one thousand men behind him. That night he camped over 
beyond Corsicana, for some certain preparations had to be made, 
and some valuable war munitions had to be gathered in. 

Texas was a vast arsenal. Magnificent batteries of French artil- 
lery stood abandoned upon the prairies. Those who surrendered 
them took the horses but left the guns. Imported muskets were in 
all the towns, and to fixed ammunition there was no limit. Ten 
beautiful Napoleon guns were brought into camp and appropriated. 
Each gun had six magnificent horses and six hundred rounds of shell 
and canister. Those who were about to encounter the unknown 
began by preparing for giants. A complete organization was next 
alfected. An election was held in due and formal manner, and 
Shelby was chosen colonel with a shout. He had received every 
vote in the regiment except his own. Misfortunes at least make 
men unanimous. The election of the companies came next. Some 
who had been majors came down to corporals, and more who had 
been lieutenants went up to majors. Rank had only this rivalry there, 
the rivalry of self-sacrifice. From the colonel to the rearmost men 
in the rearmost file it was a forest of Sharp's carbines. Each car- 
bine had, in addition to the forty rounds the soldiers carried, three 
hundred rounds more in the wagon train. Four Colt's pistols each, 
dragoon size, and a heavy regulation sabre, 'completed the equipment. 
For the revolvers there were ten thousand rounds apiece. Nor was 



240 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

this all. In the wagons there were powder, lead, bullet molds, 
and six thousand elegant new Enfields just landed from England, 
with the brand of .the Queen's arms still upon them. Recruits were 
expected, and nothing pleases a recruit so well as a bright new 
musket, good for a thousand yards. 

For all these heavy war materials much transportation was neces- 
sary. It could b3 had for the asking. General Smith's dissolving 
army, under the terms of the surrender, was to give up everything. 
And so they did, right wiUingly. Shelby took it back again, or at 
least what was needed. The march would be long, and he meant 
to make it honorable, and therefore, in addition to the horses, the 
mules, the cannon, the wagons, the fixed ammunition, and the 
muskets, Shelby took flour and bacon. The quantities were limited 
entirely by the anticipated demand, and for the first time in its his- 
tory the Confederacy was lavish of its commissary stores. 

When all these things were done and well done — these prepara- 
tions, these tearings down and buildings up, these re-organizations 
and re-habilitations, this last supreme restoration of the equilibrium 
of rank and position, a council of war was called. The old ardor 
of battle was not yet subdued in the breast of the leader. Playfully 
calling his old soldiers young recruits, he wanted as a kind of puri- 
fying process, to carry them into battle. 

The council fire was no larger than an Indian's, and around it 
were grouped Elliot, Gordon, Slayback, Williams, Collins, Lang- 
horne, Crisp, Jackman, Blackwell and a host of others who had 
discussed weighty questions before upon eve of battle — questions 
that had men's lives in them as thick as sentences in a school 
book. 

"Before we march southward," said Shelby, "I thought we 
might try the range of our new Napoleons." 

No answer, save that quiet look one soldier gives to another 
when the firing begins on the skirmish line. 

*' There is a great gathering of Federals at Shreveport, and a 
good blow in that direction might clear up the military horizon 
amazingly." 

No answer yet. They all knew what was coming, however. 

"We might find hands, too," and here his voice was wistful and 
pleading; " we might find hands for our six thousand bright new 
Enfields. What do you say, comrades?" 

They consulted some little time together and then took a vote 
upon the proposition whether, in view of the fact that there was a 
large number of unarmed Confederates at Shreveport awaiting 
transportation, it would be better to attack or not to attack. It was 
deci(Jed against the proposition, and without further discussion 
the enterprise was abandoned. These last days of the division were 
its best. For a week it remained preparing for the long and peril- 



AN UN\YRITTEN LEAF OF THE ^YAR. 241 

ous march, a week full of the last generous rites brave men could 
pay to a dead cause. Some returning and disbanded soldiers were 
tempted at times to levy contributions upon the country through 
which they passed, and at times to do some cowardly work under 
cover of darkness and drink. Shelby's stern orders arrested them 
in the act, and his swift punishment left a shield over the neighbor- 
hood that needed only its shadow to ensure safety. The women 
blessed him for his many good deeds done in those last dark days, 
deeds that shine out yet from the black wreck of things, a star. 

This kind of occupation ended at last, however, and the column 
marched away southward. One man alone knew French, and they 
were going to a land filled full of Frenchmen. One man alone knew 
Spanish, and they were going to the land of the Spaniards. The 
first only knew the French of the schools which was no French, and 
the last had been bitten by a tawny tarantula of a senorita some- 
where up in Sonora, and was worthless and valueless when most 
needed in the ranks that had guarded and protected him. 

Before reaching Austin a terrible tragedy was enacted — one of 
those sudden and bloody things so thoroughly in keeping with the 
desperate nature of the men who witnessed it. Two officers — one a 
captain and one a lieutenant — quarreled about a woman, a fair young 
thing enough, lissome and light of love. She was the Captain's by 
right of discovery, the Lieutenant's by right of conquest. At the 
night encampment she abandoned the old love for the new, and 
in the struggle for possession the Captain struck the Lieutenant fair 
in the face. 

" You have done a serious thing," some comrade said to him, 

" It will be more serious in the morning," was the quiet reply. 

" But you are in the wrong and you should apologize." 

He tapped the handle of his revolver significantly, and made 
answer: 

"This must finish what the blow has commenced. A woman 
worth kissing is worth fighting for." 

I do not mention names. There are those to-day living in Marion 
County whose sleep in eternity will be lighter and sweeter if they 
are left in ignorance of how one fair-haired boy died who went forth 
to fight the battles of the South and found a grave when her battles 
were ended. 

The Lieutenant challenged the Captain, but the question of its 
acceptance was decided even before the challenge was received. 
These were the terms: At daylight the principals were to meet one 
mile from the camp upon the prairie, armed each with a revolver 
and a saber. They were to be mounted and stationed twenty paces 
apart, back to back. At the word they were to wheel and fire, 
advancing if they chose or remaining stationary if they chose. In 
no event were they to pass beyond a line two hundred yards in the 



242 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

rear of each position. Tlils space was accorded as that in which 
the combatants mi^ht rein up and return again to the attack. 

So secret were the preparations, and so sacred the honor of the 
two men, that, although the difficulty was known to 300 soldiers, 
not one of them informed Shelby. He would have instantly 
arrested the principals, and forced a compromise, as he had done 
once before under circumstances as urgent but in no ways similar. 

It was a beautiful morning, all balm and bloom and verdure. 
There was not wind enough to shake the sparkling dew-drops 
from the grass, not wind enough to lift breast high the heavy odor 
of the flowers. The face of the sky was placid and benignant. 
Some red like a blush shone in the east, and some clouds, airy and 
gossamer, floated away to the west. Some birds sang, too, hushed 
and far apart. Two and two, and in groups, men stole away from 
the camp and ranged themselves on either flank. A-few rude jokes 
were heard, but they died out quickly as the combatants rode up to 
the dead line. Both were calm and cool, and on the Captain's face 
there was a half smile. Poor fellow, there was already the scars 
of three honorable wounds upon his body; the fourth would be 
his death wound. 

They were placed, and sat their horses like men who are about 
to charge. Each head was turned a little to one side, the feet rested 
lightly in the stirrups, the left hands grasped the reins well gathered 
up, the right hands held the deadly pistols, loaded fresh an hour 
before. 

"R-^ady — wheel!" The trained steeds turned upon a pivot as 
one steed . 

"Fire!" 

The Lieutenant never movrd from his tracks. The Captain 
dashed down upon him at a full gallop, firing as he came on. Three 
chambers were emptied, and three bullets sped away over the prairie, 
harmless. Before the fourth fire was given the Captain was abreast 
of the Lieutenant, and aiming at him at deadly range. Too late! 
The Lieutenant threw out his pistol until the muzzle almost touched 
the Captain's hair, and fired. The mad horse dashed away rider- 
less, the Captain's life-blood upon his trappings and his glossy hide. 
There was a face in the grass, a widowed woman in Missouri, and 
a soul somewhere in the white hush and waste of eternity. A great 
dragoon ball had gone directly through his brain, and the Captain 
was dead before he touched the ground. They buried him before 
the sun rose, before the dew was dried upon the grassthat grew upon 
his premature and bloody grave. There was no epitaph, yet this 
might have been lifted there, ere the grim soldiers marched away 
again to the South: 

" Ah, soldier, to your honored rest, 
Your truth and valor bearing; 
The bravest are the terderest, 
The loving are the daring." 



CHAPTEE III. 

At Houston, Texas, there was a vast depot of supplies filled with 
all kinds of quartermaster and commissary stores. Shelby desired 
that the women and children of triie soldiers should have such of 
these as would be useful or beneficial, and so issued his orders. 
These were disputed by a thousand or so refugees or renegades 
whose heads were beginning to be lifted up everywhere as soon as 
the last mutterings of the war storm were heard in the distance. 

He called to him two captains — James Meadow and James 
Wood — two men known of old as soldiers fit for any strife. The 
first is a farmer now in Jackson, the last a farmer in Pettis, both 
young, brave, worthy of all good luck or fortune. 

They came speedily; they saluted and waited for orders. 
Shelby said: 

"Take one hundred men and march quickly to Houston. Gal- 
lop oftener than you trot. Proclaim to the Confederate women that 
on a certain day you will distribute to them whatever of cloth, flour, 
bacon, medicines, clothing or other supplies they may need or that 
are in store. Hold the town until that day, and then obey my 
orders to the letter," 

" But if we are attacked? " 
" Don't wait for that. Attack first." 
'* And fire ball cartridges? " 

"And fire nothing else. Bullets first, speeches afterward." 
They galloped away to Houston. Two thousand greedy and 
clamorous ruflians were besieging the warehouses. They had not 
fought for Texas and not one dollar's worth of Texas property 
should they have. Wood and Meadow drew up in front of them. 
" Disperse !" they ordered. 

Wild, vicious eyes glared out upon them from the mass, red and 
swollen by drink. They had rifled an arsenal, too, and all had 
muskets and cartridges. 

" After we have seen what's inside this building, and taken 
what's best for us to take," the leader answered, "we will disperse. 
The war's over young fellows, and the strongest party takes the 
plunder. Do you understand our logic? " 

"Perfectly," replied Wood, as cool as a grenadier, "and it's 
bad logic if you were a Confederate, good logic if you are a 
thief. Let me talk a little. We are Missourians, we are leaving 
Texas, we have no homes, but we have our orders and our honor. 

343 



244 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Not so much as one percussion cap shall you take from this house 
until you bring a written order from Jo. Shelby, and one of Shelby's 
men along with you to prove that you did not forge that order. Do 
you understand my logic ? " 

They understood him well, and they understood better the one 
hundred stern soldiers, drawn up ten paces to the rear, with eyes to 
the front and revolvers drawn. Shrill voices from the outside of 
the crowd urged those nearest to the detachment to fire, but no 
weapon was presented. Such was the terror of Shelby's name, and 
such the reputation of his men forprowess, that not a robber stirred. 
By and by, from the rear, they began to drop away one by one, then 
in squads of tens and twenties, until, before an hour, the streets of 
Houston were as ciuiet and as peaceful as the cattle upon theprairies. 
These two determined young officers obeyed their instructions and 
rejoined their General. 

Similar scenes were enacted at Tyler and Waxahatchie. At the 
first of these places was an arsenal guarded by Colonel Blackwell, 
and a small detachmen,t consisting of squads under Captain Ward, 
Cordell, Rudd, Kirtley and Neale. They were surrounded in the 
night time by a furious crowd of mountain plunderers and shirking 
conscripts — men who had dodged both armies or deserted both. 
T'hey wanted guns to begin the war on their neighbors after the 
real war was over. 

" You can't have any," said Blackwell. 

" We will take them." 

" Come and do it. These are Shelby's soldiers, and they don't 
know what being taken means. Pray teach it to us." 

This irony was had in the darkness, be it remembered, and in the 
midst of seven hundred desperate deer-hunters and marauders who 
had bafiied all the efforts of the regular authorities to capture them. 
Blackwell's detachment numbered thirty eight. And now a deed 
was done that terrified the boldest in all that band grouped together 
in the darkness, and waiting to spring upon the little handful of 
devoted soldiers, true to that country which no longer had either 
thanks or praise to bestow. James Kirtley, James Rudd, Samuel 
Downing and Albert Jeffries seized each a keg of powder and 
advanced in front of the arsenal some fifty paces, leaving behind them 
from the entrance a dark and ominous train. Where the halt was 
had a little heap of powder was placed upon the ground, and upon 
each heap was placed a keg, the hole downward, or connected with 
the heap upon the ground. The mass of marauders surged back as 
if the earth had opened at their very feet. 

" What do you mean? " they yelled. 

" To blow you into hell," was Kirtley's quiet reply, *' if you're 
within range while we are eating our supper. We have ridden 
thirty miles, we have good consciences, and therefore wc are hungry. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 245 

Good night 1" and the reckless soldiers went back singing. One 
spark would have half demolished the town. A great awe fell upon 
the clamoring hundreds, and they precipitately fled from the deadly 
spot, not a skulker among them remaining until the daylight. 

At Waxahatchie it was worse. Here Maurice Langhorne kept 
guard. Langhorne was a Methodist turned soldier. He publishes 
a paper now in Independence, harder work, perhaps, than soldier- 
ing. Far be it from the author to say that the young Captain ever 
fell from grace. His oaths were few and far between, and not the 
great strapping oaths of the Baptists or the Presbyterians. They 
adorned themselves with black kids and white neckties, and some- 
times they fell upon their knees. Yet Langhorne was always ortho- 
dox. His pistol practice was superb. During his whole five years' 
service he never missed his man. 

He held Waxahatchie with such soldiers as John Kritzer, Mar- 
tin Kritzer, Jim Crow Childs, Bud Pitcher, Cochran and a dozen 
others. He was surrounded by a furious mob who clamored for 
admittance into the building where the stores were. 

" Go away," said Langhorne, mildly. His voice was soft enough 
for a preacher's, his looks bad enough for a backslider. 

They fired on him a close, hot volley. Wild work followed, for 
with such men how could it be otherwise? No matter who fell, 
nor the number of dead and dying, Langhorne held the town that 
night, the day following and the next night. There was no more 
mob. A deep peace came to the neighborhood, and as he rode 
away there were many true, brave Confederates who came 1o his 
little band and blessed them for what had been done. In such guise 
did these last acts of Shelby array themselves. Scornicg all who in 
the name of soldiers plundered the soldiers, he left a record behird 
him which, even to this day, has men and women to rise up and call 
it noble. 

After Houston and Tyler and Waxahatchie came Austin. The 
march had become to be an ovation. Citizens thronged the roads, 
bringing with them refreshments and good cheer. No soldier could 
pay for any thing. Those who had begun by condemning Shelby's 
stern treatment of the mob, ended by upholding him. 

Governor Murrah, of Texas, still remained at the capital of his- 
State. He had been dying for a year. All those insidious and 
deceptive approaches of consumption were seen in the hectic cheeks, 
the large, mournful eyes, the tall, bent frame that quivered as it 
moved. Murrah was a gifted and brilliant man, but his heart was 
broken. In his life there was the memory of an unblessed and an 
unhallowed love, too deep for humaik j^mpathy, too sad and 
passionate for tears. He knew deatly was near to him, yet he put on 
his old gray uniform, and mounted hijp old, tried war-horse, and rode 
9,way dying to Mexico. Later, in Monterey, the red in his cheeks 



246 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

had burnt itself out. The crimson had turned to ashen gray. He 
was dead with his uniform around him. 

The Confederate government had a sub-treasury in Austin, in the 
vaults of which were three hundred thousand dollars in gold and 
silver. Operating about the city was a company of notorioi^^ 
guerrillas, led by Captain Rabb, half rancliero and half freebooter. 
It was pleasant pasturage over beyond the Colorado river, and 
thither the Regiment went, for it had marched far, and it was weary. 
Loitering late for wine and wassail, many soldiers halted in the 
streets and tarried till the night came — a misty, cloudy, ominous 
night, full of darkness and dashes of rain. 

Suddenly a tremendous battering arose from the iron doors of 
the vaults in the State House where the money was kept. Silent 
horsemen galloped to and fro through the gloom; the bells of the 
churches were rung furiously; a home guard company mustered at 
their armory to the beat of the long role, and from beyond the 
Colorado there arose on the night air the full, resonant blare of 
Shelby's bugle sounding the well-known rallying call. In some few 
brief moments more the head of a solid column, four deep, galloped 
into the Square, reporting for duty to the Mayor of the city — a 
maimed soldier of Lee's arm3^ Ward led them. 

"They are battering down the Treasury doors," said the Mayor. 

" I should think so," replied Ward. " Iron and steel must soon 
give way before such blows. What would you have ?" 

" The safety of the treasure." 

" Forward, men!" and the detachment went off at a trot, and in 
through the great gate leading to the Capitol. It was surrounded. 
The blows continued. Lights shone through all the windows; there 
were men inside gorging themselves with gold. No questions were 
a^ked. A sudden, pitiless jet of flame spurted out from two score 
of Sharp's carbines ; there was the sound of falling men on the echo- 
ing floor, and then a great darkness. From out the smoke and gloom 
and shivered glass and scattered eagles they dragged the victims 
forth — dying, bleadiug, dead. One among the rest, a great-framed, 
giant man, had a king's ransom about his person. He had taken off 
his pantaloons, tied a string around each leg at the bottom and had 
filled them. An epicure even in death, he had discarded the silver. 
These white heaps, like a wave, had inundated the room, more 
precious to fugitive men than food or raiment. Not a dollar was 
touched, and a stern guard took his post, as immutable as fate, by 
the silver heaps and the blood puddles. In walking his beat this 
blood splashed him to the knees. 

Now this money was money of the Confederacy, it belonged to 
her soldiers, they should have taken it and divided it per capita. They 
did not do this because of this remark. Said Shelby, when they 
appealed to him to take it as a right: 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR 347 

"I went into the war with clean hands, and by God's blessing, 
I will go out of the war with clean hands. ' 

After that they would have starved before touching a silver 
picayune. 

, Ere marching the next morning, however, Murrahcameto Shelby 
and insisted that as his command was the last organized body of 
Confederates in Texas, and that as they were on theeve of abandon- 
ing the country, he should take this Confederate property just as he 
had taken the cannon and the muskets. The temptation was strong^ 
and the arguments were strong, but he never wavered. He knew 
what the world would say, and he dreaded its malice. Not for 
himself, however, but for the sake of that nation he had loved and 
fought so hard to establish. 

"We are the last of the race," he said, a little regretfully, "but 
let us be the best as well." 

And so he turned his back upon the treasury and its gold, pen- 
niless. His soldiers were ragged, without money, exiles, and yet at 
his bidding they set their faces as iron against the heaps of silver, 
and the broken doors of the treasury vaults, and rode on into the 
South. 

When the line of demarkation was so clearly drawn between 
what was supposed, and what was intended — when, indeed, Shelby's 
line of march was so straight and so steadfast as to no longer leave 
his destination in doubt, fugitives began to seek shelter under his 
flag and within the grim ranks of his veterans. Ex-Governor and 
Ex-Senator Trusten Polk was one of these. He, like the rest, was 
homeless and penniless, and joined his fortune to the fortunes of 
those who had just left three hundred thousand dollars in specie in 
Austin. From all of which Trusten Polk might have argued : 

" These fellows will carry me through, but they will find for 
me no gold or silver mines." 

Somewhere in the State were other fugitives struggling to reach 
Shelby — fugitive generals, governors, congressmen, cabinet 
officers, men who imagined that the whole power of the United 
States Government was bent upon their capture. Smith was mak- 
ing his way to Mexico, so was Magruder, Reynolds, Parsons, Stand- 
ish, Conrow, General Lyon, of Kentucky; Flournoy, Terrell, Clark, 
and Snead, of Texas; General John B. Clark, Sr., General Prevost, 
of Louisiana; Governor Henry W. Allen, Commodore M. F. Maury, 
General Bee, General Oscar Watkins, Colonel Wm M. Broadwell, 
Colonel Peter B. Wilks, and a host of others equally determined on 
flight and equally out at elbows. Of money they had scarcely fifty 
dollars to the man. Magruder brought his superb spirits and his 
soldierly heart for every fate; Reynolds, his elegant cultivation, 
and his cool, indomitable courage; Smith, his useless repinings and 
bis rigid West Point courtesy; Allen, his electric enthusiasm and 



248 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

his abounding belief in Providence; Maury, his learning and his 
foreign decorations; Clark, his inimitable drollery and his broad 
Southern humor; Prevost, his French gallantry and wit; Broad- 
well, his generosity and his speculative views of the future ; Bee, 
his theories of isothermal lines and cotton planting; and Parsons, 
and Standish and Conrow the shadow of a great darkness that was 
soon to envelop them as in a cloud— the darkness of bloody and pre- 
mature graves. 

The command was within three days' march of San Antonio. 
As it approached Mexico, the grass gave place to 'niesquite — the wide, 
undulating prairies to matted and impenetrable stretches of chap- 
paral. All the rigid requirements of war had been carried out — 
the picquet guard, the camp guard, the advanced posts, and the 
outlying scouts, aimless and objectless, apparently, but full of 
daring, and cunning, and guile. 

Pasturage was scarce this night, and from water to grass was 
two good miles. The artillery and commissary teams needed to be 
fed, and so a strong guard was sent with them to the grazing place. 
They were magnificent animals, all fat and fine enough to put bad 
thoughts in the fierce natures of the cow-boys — an indigenous Texas 
growth — and the unruly borderers. 

They had been gone an hour, and the sad roll of the tattoo had 
floated away on the night air. A scout — Martin Kritzer — rode 
rapidly up to Shelby and dismounted. 

He was dusty and tired, and had ridden far and fast. As a 
soldier, he was all iron; as a scout, all intelligence; as a sentinel, 
unacquainted with sleep. 

" Well, Martin," his General said. 

" Tlicy are after the horses," was the sententious reply. 

" What horses?" 

" Those of the artillery." 

" Why do they want them? " 

The cavalry soldier looked at his General in surprise. It was 
the first time in his life he had ever lost confidence in him. Such a 
question from such a source was more than he could well under- 
stand. He repeated slowly, a look of honest credulity on his 
bronzed face: 

"Why do they want them? — well, because they are fine, fat, 
trained in the harness, scarce to find, and worth half their weight 
in gold. Are these reasons enough? " 

Shelby did not reply He ordered Langhorne to report to him, 
He came up as he always came, smiling. 

"Take fifty men," were the curt instructions, ' and station 
them a good half mile in front of the pasturing-place. There must 
be no bullets dropping in among our stock, and they must have 
plenty of grass room. You were on duty last night, I believe," 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 249 

" Yes, General." 

"And did not sleep? " 

" No, General." 

" Nor will you sleep to-night. Station the men, I say, and then 
station yourself at the head of them. You will hear a noise in the 
night— late in the night— and presently a dark body of horsemen 
will march up, fair to see between the grass and the sky-line. You 
need not halt them. When the range gets good, fire and charge. 
Do you understand? " 

"Perfectly." 

In an hour Langhorne was at his post, silent as fate and terrible, 
couching there in his lair, with fifty good carbines behind him. 
About midnight a low note like thunder sprang up from toward 
San Antonio. The keen ear of the practiced soldier took in its 
meaning, as a sailor might the speech of the sea. 

" Get ready — they are coming." 

The indolent forms lifted themselves up from the great shadow 
of the earth. When they were still again they were mounted. 

The thunder grew louder. What had before been noise was 
now shape and substance. Seventy-eight border men were riding 
down to raid the herders. 

"Are you all loaded? " asked Langhorne. 

" All. Have been for four years," 

From the mass in front plain figures evolved themselves. Under 
the stars their gun-barrels shone. 

"They have guns," sneered Langhorne, " but no scouts in front. 
What would Old Joe say to that? " 

"He would dismount them and send them to the infantry," 
laughed John Kritzer. 

The leading files were within fifty yards, near enough for a 
volley. They had not heard this grim by-play, rendered under the 
night and to the ears of an unseen death crouching in the prairie 
grass. 

' ' Make ready ! " Langhorne's voice had a gentleness in it, soft as 
a caress. The Methodist had turned lover. 

Fifty dark muzzles crept out to the front, and waited there 
gaping. 

"Take aim!" The softest things are said in whispers. The 
Methodist was about to deliver the benediction. 

"Fire!" 

A red cleft in the heart of the midnight— a murky shroud of dun 
and dark that smelt of sulphur — a sudden uprearing of staggering 
steedsandstaggeringriders— a wild, pitiful panic of spectres who 
had encountered the unknown— and fifty terrible men dashed down 
to the charge. Why follow the deadly work under the sky and the 
stars. It was providence fulfilling a vow— fate restoring the equi* 



250 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO. 

librium of justice— justice vindicating the supremacy of its immortal 
logic. Those who came to rob had been a scourge more dreaded 
than the pestilence — more insatiate than a famine. Defying alike 
civil and martial law, they had preyed alternately upon the people 
and the soldiers. They were desperadoes and marauders of the 
worst type, feared and hated or both. Beyond a few scattering 
shots, fired by the boldest of them in retreat, they made no fight. 
The dead were not buried. As the regiment moved on toward San 
Antonio, thirty-nine could have been counted lying out in the grass 
—booted and spurred, and waiting the Judgment Day. 



CHAPTER IV. 

San Antonio, in the full drift of the tide which flowed in from 
Mexico, was first an island and afterward an oasis. To the hungry 
and war-worn soldiers of Shelby's expedition it was a Paradise. 
Mingo, the unparalleled host of Mingo's Hotel, was the guardian 
angel, but there was no terror in his looks, nor any flaming sword 
in his hand. Here, everything that European markets could afford, 
w^as found in abundance. Cotton, magnificent even in its overthrow, 
had chosen this last spot as the city of its refuge and its caresses. 
Fugitive generals had gathered here, and fugitive senators and 
fugitive governors and fugitive desperadoes, as well, men senten- 
tious of speech and quick of pistol practice. These last had taken 
immediate possession of the city, and were xioting in the old royal 
fashion, sitting in the laps of courtesans and drinking wines fresh 
through the blockade from France. Those passers-by who jeered 
at them as they went to and fro received a fusillade for their folly. 
Seven even had been killed— seven good Texan soldiers— and a 
great tear had fallen upon the place, this antique, half -Mexican city 
which had seen Fannin's ne\V Thermopylce, and the black Spanish 
death-flag wind itself up into the Alamo. When the smoke had 
cleared away and the powder-pall had been lifted, the black had 
become crimson. 

First a speck and then a vulture, until the streets had become 
dangerous with desperadoes. They had plundered a dozen stores, 
had sacked and burnt a commissary train, had levied a prestamo 
upon the citizens, and had gone one night to "smoke out Tom 
Hindman," in their rough border dialect. Less fortunate than Put- 
nam, they found the wolf's den, and the wolf was within, but he 
showed his teeth and made fight. They hammered at his door 
furiously. A soft musical voice called out: 

"What do you want?" 

Hindman was a small man, having the will and the courage of 
a Highlander. Eloquent of speech, cool, a colloquial swordman 
whose steel had poison on it from point to hilt, audacious in plot, 
imperturbable in finesse, gray -eyed, proud at times to isolation, 
unsuccessful in the field, and incomparable in the cabinet, it was 
this manner of a man who had called out from behind his barri- 
cade. 

The leader of the attacking party answered him: 

" It is said that you have dealt in cotton, that you have gold, that 
you are leaving the country. We have come for the gold — that U 
ftU." 



252 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

" Indeed ! " and the soft voice was strangely harsh and guttural 
now. " Then, since you have come for the gold, suppose you take 
the gold. In the absence of all law, might makes right." 

He spoke to them not another word that night, but no man 
advanced to the attack upon the building, and when the daylight 
came, Shelby was in possession of the city. A deputation of citizens 
had traveled nearly twenty miles that day to his camp, and 
besought him to hasten forward, that their lives and their property 
might be saved. The camp was in deep sleep, for the soldiers had 
traveled far, but they mustered to the shrill bugle call, and rode on 
through the long night afterwards, for ,honor and for duty. 

Discipline is a stern, chaste queen — beautiful at times as 
Semiramis, ferocious as Medea. Her hands are those of the priest 
and the executioner. They excommunicate, which is a bandage over 
the eyes and a platoon of musketry; they make the sign of the cross, 
which is the acquittal of a drum-head court-martial. Most generally 
the excommunications outnumber the genuflections. 

D. A. Williams did provost duty on one side of the river, A. W. 
Slayback upon the other. What slipped through the hands of 
the first fell into those of the last. What escaped both fell into the 
water. Some men are born to be shot, some to be hung, and some 
to be drowned. Even desperadoes have this fatality in common 
with the Christians, and thus in the ranks of the plunderers there is 
predestination. Peace came upon the city as the balm of a south- 
east trade-wind, and after the occupation there was an ovation. 
Women walked forth as if to a festival. The Plaza transformed itself 
into a parterre. Roses bloomed in the manes of the horses — these 
v/ere exotic; roses bloomed in the faces of the maidens — these were 
divine. After Cannse there was Capua. Shelby had read of Hanni- 
bal, the Carthagenian, and had seen Hannibal the elephant, and so 
in his mind there was no more comparison between the battle and the 
town than there was between the man and the animal. He would 
rest a little, much, many, glad and sunshiny days, filled full of dal- 
liance, and dancing, and music. 

Mingo's Hotel from a cloister had become to be a cantonment. 
It was noisy like a hive, vocal like a morning in May. Serenading 
parties improvised themselves. Jake Connor led them, an artillery 
officer, who sank like Mario and fought like Victor Emmanuel. In 
his extremes he was Italian. On the edge of all this languor and love, 
discipline, like a fringe, arrayed itself. Patrols paraded the streets, 
sentinels stood at the corners, from post to post martial feet made 
time, and in the midst of a flood of defeat, disaster, greed, over- 
throw, and rending asunder, there was one ark which floated hither 
and thither armed in a fashion unknown to Noah, bearing a strange 
barred banner at the fore— the Banner of the Bars. When itg 
Ararat was found there was no longer any more Ark. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 253 

On the evening of the second day of occupation, an ambulance 
drew up in front of the Mingo House. Besides the driver, there 
alighted an old man, aged, bent, spent with fatigue, and dusty as 
a foot soldier. Shelby sat in the balcony watching him, a light of 
recognition in his calm, cold eyes. The old man entered, approached 
the register, and wrote his name. One having curiosity enough to 
look over his shoulder might have read : 

" William Thompson." 

Fair enough name and honest. The old man went to his room 
and locked his door. The windows of his room looked out upon 
the plaza. In a few moments it was noticed that the blinds were 
drawn, the curtains down. Old men need air and sunlight; they 
do not commence hibernating in June. 
When he had drawn his blinds, Shelby called up Connor. 

" Get your band together. Lieutenant," was the order. 

"For what. General?" 

" For a serenade." 

" A serenade to whom?" 

"No matter, but a serenade just the same. Order, also as you 
go out by headquarters, that .all the men not on duty, get under 
arms immediately and parade in front of the balcony," 

The assembly blew a moment afterwards, and as the sun set a 
serried mass of soldiers, standing shoulder to shoulder, were in line, 
waiting. Afterwards the band marched into the open place 
reserved for it, Connor leading, 

Shelby pointed up to the old man's window, smiling. 

"Play • Hail to the Chief,' " he said. 

It was done. No answering signals at the window. The blinds 
from a look of silence had put on one of selfishness, 
Shelby spoke again: 

"Try ' Dixie,' boys. If the old man were dead it would bring 
him to life again." 

The sweet, familiar strains rose up rapid and exultant, filling 
all the air with life and the pulses with blood. When they had died 
with the sunset, there was still no answer. 
Shelby spoke again : 

'That old man up there is Kirby Smith ; I would know him 
among a thousand. Shout for him until you are hoarse," 

A great roar burst forth like a tempest, shaking the house, and 
in the full torrent of the tide, and borne aloft as an awakening cry, 
could be heard the name of ' ' Smith ! " " Smith ! " 

The blinds flew open, the curtains were rolled up, and in plain 
view of this last remnant of his magnificent army of fifty thousand 
men. General E. Kirby Smith came forth undisguised, a look full 
of eagerness and wonderment on his weary and saddened face. He 
did not understand the greeting, the music, the armed men, the 



254 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

eyes that had penetrated his disguise, the shouts that had invaded 
his retreat. Threatened with death by roving and predatory bands 
from Shreveport to San Antonio, he knew not whether one friend 
remained to him of all the regiments he had fed, clothed, flattered, 
and left unf ought. 

Shelby rose up in his place, a great respect and tenderness at 
work in his heart for this desolate and abandoned man who had 
lived the military life that was in him, and who — a stranger in 
a land filled full of his soldiers — had not so much as a broken 
flag staff to lean upon. Given not overmuch to speaking and brief 
of logic and rhetoric, he won the exile when he said to him : 

" General Smith, you are the ranking oflHcer in the Trans-Missis- 
sippi Department. These are your soldiers, and we are here to 
report to you. Command, and we obey; lead us and we will fol- 
low. In this public manner, and before all San Antonio, with 
music and with banners, we come to proclaim your arrival in the 
midst of that little band which knows neither dishonor nor sur- 
render. You were seeking concealment, and you have found a 
noontide of soldierly obedience and devotion. You were seeking 
the night and the obscurity of self-appointed banishment and 
exile, and you have found guards to attend you, and the steadfast 
light of patriotism to make your pathway plain. We bid you 
good morning instead of good night, and await, as of old, your 
further orders." 

Shouts arose upon shouts, triumphal music filled all the air 
again; thrice Smith essayed to speak, and thrice his tears mastered 
him. In an hour he was in the ranks of his happy soldiers as safe 
and as full of confidence as a king upon his throne. 

There came also to San Antonio, before the march was resumed, 
an Englishman who was a mystery and an enigma. Some said he 
was crazy, and he might have been, for the line of demarkation is so 
narrow and so fine between the sound and the unsound mind, that 
analysis, however acute, fails often to ascertain where the first ends 
and the last begins. This Englishman, however, was different from 
most insane people in this — that he was an elegant and accomplished 
linguist; an extensive traveler, a soldier who had seen service in 
Algeria with the French, and in the Crimea with the British, and a 
hunter who had known Jules Girard and Gordon Cumming. His 
views upon suicide were as novel as they were logically presented. 
His knowledge of chemistry, and the intricate yet fascinating 
science of toxicology, surprised all who conversed with him. He 
was a man of the middle age, seemingly rich, refined in all of his 
habits and tastes, and si ngularly winning and fascinating in his inter- 
course with the men. Dudley, that eminent Kentucky physician, 
known of most men in America, declared, after the observations of 
a long life, that every man born of a woman was crazy upon some 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 055 

one subject. This Englishman, therefore, if he was crazy at all, 
was crazy upon the subject of Railroad Accidents. He had a fever- 
ish desire to see one, be in one, enjoy one, and run the risk of being 
killed by one. He had traveled, he said, over two continents, pur- 
suing a phantom which always eluded him. Now before and now 
behind him, and then again upon the route he had just passed over, 
he had never so much as seen an engine ditched. As for a real, 
first-class collision, he had long ago despaired of its enjoyment. 
His talk never ended of wrecked cars and shattered locomotives. 
With a sigh he abandoned his hopes of a luxury so peculiar and un- 
natural, and came as a private to an expedition which wastakinghim 
away from the land of railroads. Later, this strange Englishman, 
this traveler, linguist, soldier, philosopher, chemist— this moncma- 
niac, too, if you will — was foremcst in the battle of the Salinas, 
fighting splendidly, and well to the front. A musket ball killed his 
horse. He mounted another and continued to press forward. The 
second bullet shattered his left leg from the knee to the ankle. It 
was not known that he was struck until a third ball, entering the 
breast fairly, knocked him clear and clean ficm the saddle, dying. 
He lived until the sun went down— an hour and more. Before he 
died, however, the strangest part of his life was to come — that of 
his confession. "When related, in its proper sequence, it will be 
found how prone the best of us are to forget that it is the heart 
which is oftener diseased than the heed. He had suffered much In 
his stormy lifetime, had sinned not a little, and had died as a 
hunted wolf dies, viciously and at bay. 

At San Antonio, also, Governor Reynolds and General Magruder 
joined the expedition. The first was a man whose character had to 
be tried in the fiery crucible of military strife and disaster, that it 
might stand out grand, massive and indomitable. He was a states- 
man and a soldier. Much residence abroad had made him an 
accomplished diplomatist. He spoke three foreign languages 
fluently. To the acute analysis of a cultivated and expanded mind, 
he had added the exacting logic of the law. Poetry, and all the 
natural and outward forms of beauty affected him like other imagi- 
native men, but in his philosophy he discarded the ornate for the 
strong, the Oriental architecture for the Corinthian. Revolution 
stood revealed before him, stripped of all its glare and tinsel. As a 
skillful physician, he laid his hand upon the pulse of the war and 
told the fluctuations of the disease from the symptoms of the 
patient. He knew the condition of the Confederacy better than its 
President, and worked like a giant to avert the catastrophe. Shams 
fled before him as shadows before the sun. He heard no voice but 
of patriotism, knew no word but devotion, had no ambition but for 
his country, blessed no generals without victorious battle fields, and 
exiled himself before he would surrender. His faith was spotless 



256 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO. 

in the sight of that God of battles in whom he put his trust, and his 
record shone out through all the long, dark days as a light that was 
set upon a hill. 

Magruder was a born soldier, dead now and gone to heaven. He 
had a ligure like a Mars divested of immortality. He would fight 
all day and dance all night. He wrote love songs and sang them, 
and won an heiress rich beyond comparison. The wittiest mtin in 
the old army. General Scott adored him. His speech had a lisp that 
was attractive, inasmuch as it lingered over its puns and caressed 
its rhetoric. Six feet in heigth, and straight as Tecumseh, 
Magruder, in full regimentals, was the handsomest soldier in the Con- 
federacy. Not the fair, blonde beauty of the city, odorous of per- 
fume and faultless in tailor-fashion, but a great, bronzed Ajax, 
mighty thewed, and as strong of hand as strong of digestion. He 
loved women, too, and was beloved by them. After Galveston, 
with blood upon his garments, a bullet wound upon his body, and 
victory upon his standards, he danced until there was daybreak in 
the sky and sunlight upon the earth. From the fight to the frolic 
it had been fifty-eight hours since he had slept. A boy at sixty- 
four, penniless, with a family in Europe, homeless, bereft of an 
avocation he had grown gray in following, having no country and 
no calling, he, too, had come to his favorite officer to choose his 
bivouac and receive his protection. The ranks opened eagerly for 
this wonderful recruit, who carried in his old-young head so many 
memories of the land towards which all were journeying. 



CHAPTER V. 

F-ROM San Antonio to Eagle pass was a long march made dreary 
by mesquite and chapparal. In the latter war laggards abounded, 
sleeping by day and devouring by night. These hung upon the 
flanks and upon the rear of the column, relying more upon force 
than stratagem — more upon surprises for capture, than sabre woik 
or pistol practice. Returning late one night from extra duty, D. 
A. Williams with ten men met a certain Captain Bradford with 
thirty-two. Williams had seven mules that Bradford wanted, and 
to get them it was necessary to take them. This he tried from an 
ambush, carefully sought and cunningly planned— an ambush all 
the more deadly because the superb soldier Williams was lidirg 
campward under the moon, thinking more of women than of war. 

In front, and back from the road upon the right, was a clump 
of mesquite too thick almost for a centipede to crawl through. 
When there was water, a stream bounded one edge of this under- 
growth; when there was no water, the bed of this stream was a 
great ditch. When the ambushment was had, insteadv of water 
there was sand. On guard, however, more from the force of habit 
than from the sense of danger, Williams had sent a young soldier 
forward, to reconnoitre and to stay forward, watching well 
upon the right hand and upon the left. George R. Cruzen 
was his name, and a braver and better never awoke to the sound 
of the reveille. Cruzen had passed the mesquite, passed beyond 
the line of its shadows, passed out into the glare of a full har- 
vest moon, when a stallion neighed fiercely to the right of him. 
He halted by instinct, and drew himself together listening. 
Thanks to the sand, his horse's feet had made no noise; thanks to 
the stallion, he had stopped before the open jaws of the defile had 
closed upon their prey. He rode slowly back into the chapparal, 
dismounted, tied his horse, and advanced on foot to the brink of 
the ravine just where it skirted the edge of the brush. As he held 
his breath he counted thirty stalwart men crouching in the moon- 
light. Two he did not see. These were on guard where the road 
crossed the dry bed of the creek. Cruzen's duty was plain before 
him. Regaining his horse speedily, he galloped back to where 
Williams had halted for a bit of rest. "Short greeting serves in 
timeof strife," and Cruzen stated the case so plainly that Williams 
could almost see the men as they waited there for his little band. 
He bade his soldiers dismount, take a pistol in each hand, 'and fol- 
low him. Before doing this the horses and led mules were securely 
fastened. 

257 



258 Sr.ELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

Stealing round the point of the chapparal noiselessly as the flight 
of birds through the air, he came upon the left flank of the 
marauders, upon that flank which had been left unprotected and 
unguarded. He was within five paces of them before he was dis- 
covered. They fired a point blank volley full in his face, but hi& 
detachment fell forward and escaped untouched. As they arose 
they charged. The melee was close and suffocating. Three of 
Williams' soldiers died in the ravine, two scrambled out wounded to 
the death, one carries yet a bullet in his body. But he triumphed. 
Never was there a fight so small, so rapid and so desperate. Cruzen 
killed three, Cam. Boucher three, Williams four. Has. Woods five 
with one pistol, a heavy English dragoon, and other soldiers of the 
ten two apiece. Out of the thirty-two, twenty-seven lay dead in a 
space three blankets might have covered. Shelby heard the firing, 
and sent swift succor back, but the terrible work was done. Wil- 
liams rarely left a fight half finished. His deeds that night were 
the talk of the camp for many long marches thereafter. 

The next day at noon, while halting for dinner, two scouts 
from the rear — James Kirtley and James Rudd — galloped in with 
the news that a Federal force, 3,000 strong, with a six gun battery, 
was marching to overtake the column. 

"Who commands?" asked Shelby. 

" Colonel Johnson," replied Rudd. 

"How far in the rear did you see him?" 

"About seventeen miles." 

"Mount your horse again, Rudd, you and Kirtley, and await 
further orders." 

Shelby then called one who had been his ordnance master, Maj. 
Jos. Moreland. Moreland came, polite, versatile, clothed all in red 
and gold lace. Fit for any errand, keen for any frolic, fond of any 
adventure, so only there were wine and shooting in it, Moreland 
reported. 

"I believe," said Shelby, "you can turn the prettiest period, 
make the grandest bow, pay the handsomest compliment, and drink 
the pleasantest toast of any man in my command. Take these two 
soldiers with you, ride to the rear seventeen miles, seek an interview 
with Colonel Johnson, and give him this." 

It was a note which he handed him — a note which read as 
follows: 

"Colonel: My scouts inform me that you have about three 
thousand men, and that you are looking for me. I have only one 
thousand men, and yet I should like to make your acquaintance. I 
will probably march from my present camp about ten miles further 
to-day, halting on the high road between San Antonio and Eagle 
Pass. Should you desire to pay me a visit, you will find me at home 
until day after to-morrow." 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 259 

Moreland took the message and bore it speedily to its destination. 
Amid many profound bows, and a multitude of graceful and com- 
plimentary words, he delivered it. Johnson was a gentleman, and 
dismissed the embassy with many promises to be present. He did 
not come. That night he went into camp five miles to the rear, and 
rested there all the next day. True to his word, Shelby waited for 
him patiently, and made every prepraration for a stubborn fight. 
Once afterwards Colonel Johnson came near enough to indicate busi- 
ness, but he halted again at the eleventh hour and refused to pick 
up the gage of battle. Perhaps he was nearer right than his antag- 
onist. The war was over, and the lives of several hundred men 
were in his keeping. He could afford to be lenient in this, the last 
act of the drama, and he was. Whatever his motives, the challenge 
remained unaccepted. As for Shelby, he absolutely prayed for a 
meeting. The old ardor of battle broke out like a hidden fire, and 
burnt up every other consideration. He would have staked all and 
risked all upon the issue of the fight— one man against three. 

The march went rapidly on. But one adventure occurred after 
Williams' brief battle, and that happened in this wise: Some stores 
belonging to the families of Confederate soldiers had been robbed 
by renegades and deserters a few hours previous to Shelby's arrival 
in the neighborhood. A delegation of women came to his camp 
seeking restitution. He gave them retribution. Eleven miles from 
the plundered habitations was a rugged range of hills, inaccessible 
to most soldiers who had ridden and raided about its vicinity. 
Here, as another Rob Roy, the leader of the robber band had his 
rendezvous. This band numbered, all told, nearly three hundred, 
and a motley band it wa^, composed of Mexicans, deserters from 
both armies, Indians, men from Arizona and California, and des- 
perate fugitives from justice, whose names were changed, and 
whose habitations had been forgotten. To these hills the property 
had been taken, and to these hills went Slay back with two hundred 
men. He found the goods piled up breast high, and in front of 
them, to defend them, were about two hundred robbers. They 
scarcely waited for a fire. Slayback charged them with a great 
rush, and with the revolver solely. The nature of the ground alone 
prevented the attack from becoming an extermination. Slayback 
finished his work, as he always did, thoroughly and well, and 
returned to the command without the loss of a, man. 

About this time three men came to Shelby and represented them- 
selves as soldiers of Lee's army who where abandoning the country, 
and who wished to go with him to Mexico. They were enrolled at 
once and assigned to a company. In a day or two -some suspicions 
were aroused from the fact of their being well acquainted with the 
Spanish language, speaking it fluently upon every occasion when an 
opportunity offered. Now Lee's soldiers had but scant time for the 



260 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO. 

acquirement of such accomplishments, and it became at last a ques- 
tion of some doubt as to the truth of the statements of these three 
men. To expose them fully it cost one of them his arm, the other 
two their lives, together with the lives of thirteen Mexicans who, 
guiltless in the intention, yet sinned in the act. 

AVheu within three days' journey of the Rio Grande, General Smith 
expressed a desire to precede the regiment into Mexico, and asked 
for an escort. This was cheerfully furnished, and Laughoin 
received his orders to guard the Commander-in-Chief of the Trans- 
Mississippi Department safely to the river, and as far beyond as the 
need might be, if it were to the Pacific ocean. There was not a 
drop of the miser's blood in Shelby's veins. In everything he was 
prodigal — of his money, when he had any, of his courage, of his 
blood, of his men, of his succor, of his influence, of his good deeds 
to his comrades and superior officers, and of his charities to others 
not so strong and so dauntless as himself. With Smith there went 
also, Magruder, Prevost, Wilcox, Bee, and a score of other officers, 
who had business with certain French and Mexican officers at Pie- 
dras Negras, and who were tired of the trained marching and the regu- 
lar encampments of the disciplined soldiers. 

Langhorn did his duty well. Rigid in all etiquette, punctilious 
in the performance of every obligation, as careful of his chni[ t as 
he could have been of a post of honor in the front of battle. Smith 
said to him, w^hen he bade him good-bye : 

" With an army of such soldiers as Shelby has, and this last sad 
act in the drama of exile would have been left unrecorded." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Eagle Pass is on one side of the Rio Grande river, Piedras Negras 
upon the other. The names indicate the countries. Wherever there 
is an American there is always an eagle. Two thousand Mexican 
soldiers held Piedras Negras— followers of Jaurez— quaint of cos- 
tume and piratical of aspect. They saw the head of Shelby's 
column deboucJiing from the plateaii above the river— they saw the 
artillery planted ard commanding the town— they saw the trained 
soldiers form up rapidly to the right and left, and they wondered 
greatly thereat. No boats would come over. Not a skiff ventured 
beyond the shade of the Mexican shore, and not a sign of life, except 
the waving of a blanket at intervals, or the glitter ofasombrcio 
through the streets, and the low, squat adobes. 

Hv)w to get over was the question. The river was high and 
rapid. 

" Who can speak Spanish ?" asked Shelby. 
Only one man answe^-ed— him of the senorita of Senora— a 
recruit who had joined at Corsicana, and who had neither name nor 
lineage. 

" Can you swim ?" asked Shelby. 
"Well." 

" Suppose you try for a skiff, that we may open negotiations 
with the town." 

'* I dare not, I am afraid to go over alone." 
Shelby opened his eyes. For the first time in his life such 
answer had been made by a soldier. He scarcely knew what the 
man was saying. 

"Afraid/" This with a kind of half pity. "Then stand 
aside." This with a cold contempt. Afterwards his voice rang 
out with its old authority. 

"Volunteers for the venture — swimmers to the front." Fifty 
stalwart men dashed down to the water, dismounted — waiting. He 
chose but two— Dick Berry and George Winship— two dauntless 
young hearts fit for any forlorn hope beneath the sun. The stream 
was wide, but they plunged in. No matter for the drowning. 
They took their chances as they took the waves. It was only one 
more hazard of battle. Before starting, Shelby had spoken to 
Collins: 

" Load with canister. If a hair of their heads is hurt, not one 
stone upon another shall be lift in Piedras Negras." 

The current was strong and beat the men down, but they mas. 
tered it, and laid hands upon a skiff whose owner did not come to 

261 



262 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

claim it. In an hour a flag of truce was carried into the town, 
borne by Colonel Frank Gordon, having at his back twenty-five 
men with side arms alone. 

Governor Biesca, of the State of Coahuila, half soldier and 
half civilian, was in command — a most polished and elegant man, 
who quoted his smiles and italicised his gestures. Surrounded by a 
glittering staff, he dashed into the Plaza and received Gordon with 
much of pomp and circumstance. Further on in the day Shelby 
came over, when a long and confidential interview was held between 
the American and the Mexican— between the General and the Gov- 
ernor — one blunt, abrupt, a little haughty and suspicious — the other 
suave, voluble, gracious, in promises, and magnificent in offers and 
inducements. 

Many good days before this interview — before the terrible trag- 
edy at that Washington theatre where a President fell dying in the 
midst of his army and his capital — Abraham Lincoln had made an 
important revelation, indirectly, to some certain Confederate chief- 
tains. This came through General Frank P. Blair to Shelby, and 
was to this effect: The struggle will soon be over. Overwhelmed 
by the immense resources of the United States, the Southern gov- 
ernment is on the eve of an utter collapse. There will be a million 
of men disbanded who have been inured to the license and the pas- 
sions of war, and who may be troublesome if nothing more. An 
open road will be left through Texas for all who may wish to enter 
Mexico. The Confederates can take with them a portion or all of 
the arms and war munitions now held by them, and when the days 
of their enlistment are over, such Federal soldiers as may desire 
shall also be permitted to join the Confederates across the Rio 
Grande, uniting afterwards in an effort to drive out the French and 
re-establish Juarez and the Republic. Such guarantees had Shelby 
received, and while on the march from Corsicana to Eagle Pass, a 
multitude of messages overtook him from Federal regiments and 
brigades, begging him to await their arrival — a period made depend- 
ent upon their disbandment. They wished above all things to take 
service with him, and to begin again a war upon imperialism after 
the war upon slavery. 

Governor Biesca exhibited his authority as Governor of Coa- 
huila, and as Commander-in-Chief of Coahuila, Tamaulipasand New 
Leon, and offered Shelby the military control of these three States, 
retaining to himself only the civil. He required of him but one 
thing, a full, free and energetic support of Benito Juarez. He sug- 
gested, also, that Shelby should remain for several months at Pied- 
ras Negras, recruiting his regiment up to a division, and that when 
he felt himself sufficiently strong to advance, he should move against 
Monterey, held by General Jeanningros, of the Third French 
Zouaves, and some two thousand soldiers of the Foreign Legion. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 263 

The picture, as painted by tliis fervid Mexican, was a most 
attractive one, and to a man like Shelby, so ambitious of military 
fame, and so filled with the romance and the adventure of his situa- 
tion, it was doubly so. At least he was a devout Liberal.. Having 
but little respect for Mexican promises or Mexican civilization, he 
yet knew that a corps of twenty thousand Americans could be easily 
recruited, and that after he once got a foothold in the country, he 
could preserve it for all time. His ideas were all of conquest. If he 
dreamed at all, his dreams were of Cortez. He saw the golden 
gates of Sonora rolled back at his approach, and in his visions, per- 
haps, there were glimpses of those wonderful mines guarded even 
now as the Persians guarded the sacred fire of their gods. 

The destiny of the expedition was in this interview. Looking 
back now through the placid vista of the peace years, there are 
but few of all that rugged band who would speak out to-day as 
they did about the council board on the morrow after the Ameri- 
can and the Mexican had shaken hands and went their separate 
ways. 

The council was long, and earnest, and resolute. Men made 
brief speeches, but they counted as so much gold in the scales that 
had the weighing of the future. If Shelby was more elaborate and 
more eloquent, that was his wont, be sure there were sights his fer- 
vid fancy saw that to others were unrevealed, and that evolving itself 
from the darkness and the doubts of the struggle ahead, was the fair 
form of a new empire, made precious by knightly deeds, and gra- 
cious with romantic perils and achievements. 

Shelby spoke thus to his followers, when silence had fallen, and 
men were face to face with the future : 

" If you are all of my mind, boys, and will take your chances 
along with me, it is Juarez and the Republic from this on until we 
die here, one by one, or win a kingdom. We have the nucleus of a 
fine army — we have cannon, muskets, amunition, some good pros- 
pects for recruits, a way open to Sonora, and according to the faith 
that is in us will be the measure of our loss or victory. Determine 
for yourselves. You know Biesca's offer. What he fails to per- 
form we will perform for ourselves, so that when the game is played 
out there will be scant laughter over any Americans trapped or 
slain by treachery." 

There were other speeches made, briefer than this one by the 
leader, and some little of whispering apart and in eagerness. At 
last Elliott stood up — the spokesman. He had been a fighting colo- 
nel of the Old Brigade, he had been wounded four times, he was 
very stern and very true, and so the lot fell to him to make answer. 

"General, if you order it, we will follow you into the Pacific 
Ocean; but we are all Imperialists, and would prefer service under 
Maximilian." 



364 SHELBY^S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

" Is this your answer, men? " and Shelby's voice had come back 
to its old cheery tones. ^ 

"It is." 

"Final?" 

" As the grave." 

"Then it is mine, too. Henceforth we will fight under Maxi- 
milian. To-morrow, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the march 
shall commence for Monterey. Let no man repine. You have 
chosen the Empire, and, perhaps, it is well, but bad or good, your 
fate shall be my fate, and your fortune my fortune." 

The comrade spoke then. The soldier had spoken at Marshall, 
at Corsicana, at San Antonio, and in the long interview held with 
Biesca. Time has revealed many things since that meetingin June, 
1865 — many thingsthat might have been done and welldone, had the 
frank speech of Elliott remained unspoken— had the keen feeling of 
sympathy between the French and the Confederates been less 
romantic. Shelby was wiser then than any man who followed him, 
and strong enough to have forced them in the pathway that lay 
before Jiis eyes so well revealed, but he would not for the richest 
province in Mexico. And as the conference closed, he said, in pass- 
ing out: 

"Poor, proud fellows — it is principle with them, and they 
had rather starve under the Empire than feast in a republic. 
Lucky, indeed, for many of them if to famine there is not added a 
fusillade." 

Governor Biesca's bland face blankly fell when Shelby 
announced to him the next morning the decision of the conference. 
He had slept upon the happiness of d, coup d' etat ; when he awoke 
it was a phantasy. No further arguments availed him, and he made 
none. When a Mexican runs his race, and comes face to face with 
the inevitable, he is the most indifferent man in the world. A mut- 
tered bueana, a folded cigarrito, a bow to the invisible, and he has 
made his peace with his conscience and his God, and lies or sighs in 
the days that come after as the humor of the fancy takes him. 

Biesca had all of his nation's nonchalance, and so, when for his 
master's service he could not get men, he tried for munitions of 
war. Negotiations for the purchase of the arms, the artillery and 
the ammunition were begun at once. A prestamo was levied. 
Familiarity with this custom had made him an adept. Being a part 
of the national education, it was not expected that one so high in 
rank as a governor would be ignorant of its rudiments. 

Between the Piedras Negras and Monterey the country was al- 
most a wilderness. A kind of debatable ground — the robbers had 
raided it, the Liberals had plundered it, and the French had deso- 
lated it. As Shelby was to pass over it, he could not carry with 
him his teams, his wagons, his atillery and his supply trains. Be- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 265 

sides lie had no money to buy food, even if food was to be had, and 
as it had been decided to abandon Juarez, it was no longer neces- 
sary to retain the war material. Hence the prestamo. A list of the 
merchants was made; the amount assessed to each was placed oppo- 
site his name; an adjutant with a file of soldiers called upon the in- 
terested party; bowed to him; wished him happiness and high fort- 
une ; pointed to the ominous figures, and waited . Generally they 
did not wait long. As between the silver and the guard-house the 
merchant chose the former, paid his toll, cursed the Yankees, made 
the sign of the cross, and went to sleep. 

By dint of much threatening, and much mild persuasiveness — 
such persuasiveness as bayonets give — sixteen thousand dollars were 
got together, and, for safety were deposited in the custom house. 
On the morrow they were to be paid out. 

r The day was almost a tropical one. No air blew about the 
streets, and a white glare came over the sands and settled as a cloud 
upon the houses and upon the water. The men scattered in every 
direction, careless of consequences, and indifferent as to results. 
The cafes were full. Wine and women abounded. Beside the 
bronzed faces of the soldiers were the tawny faces of the senoritas. 
In the passage of the drinking-horns the men kissed the women. 
Great American oaths came out from the tiendas, harsh at times, 
and resonant at times. Even in their wickedness they were 
national. 

A tragedy was making head, however, in spite of the white 
glare of the sun, and the fervid kisses under the rose. The three 
men, soldiers of Lee's army ostensibly — men who had been fed and 
sheltered — were tempting Providence beyond the prudent point. 
Having the hearts of sheep, they were dealing with lions. To 
their treachery they were about to add bravado — to the magazine 
they were about to apply the torch. 

There is a universal Mexican law which makes a brand a Bible. 
From its truth there is no appeal. Every horse in the country is 
branded, and every brand is entered of record, just as a deed or 
legal conveyance. Some of these brands are intricate, some 
uaique, some as fantastic as a jester's cap, some a single letter of the 
alphabet, but all legal and lawful brands just the same, and good 
to pass muster anywhere so only there are alcaldes and sandalled 
soldiers about. Their logic is extremely simple, too. You prove 
the brand and take the horse, no matter who rides him, nor how 
great the need for whip and spur. 

In Shelby's command there were a dozen magnificent horses, fit 
for a king's race, who wore a brand of an unusual fashion — many- 
lined and intricate as a column of Arabesque. They had been ob- 
tained somewhere above San Antonio, and had been dealt with as 
only cavalry soldiers know how to deal with horses. These the 



266 ■ SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

three men wanted. With their knowledge of Spanish, they had 
gone among the Mexican soldiers, poisoning their minds with tales 
of American rapine and slaughter, depicting, with not a little of 
attractive rhetoric, the long and weary march they had made with 
these marauders that their beloved steeds might not be taken entirely 
away from them. 

The Mexicans listened, not from generosity, but from greed, and 
swore a great oath by the Virgin that the gringos should deliver up 
every branded horse across the Rio Grande. 

Ike and Dick Berry rode each a branded horse, and so did A.rm- 
istead, Kirtley, Winship, Henry Chiles, John Rudd, Yowell and 
two-score more, perhaps, equally fearless, and equally ignorant of 
any other law besides the law of possession. 

The afternoon drill was over. The hot glare was still upon the 
earth and the sky. If anything, the noise from the cafes came 
louder and merrier. Where the musical voices were the sweetest, 
were the places where the women abounded with disheveled hair 
and eyes of tropical dusk. 

Ike Berry had ridden one of these branded horses into the street 
running by regimental headquarters, and sat with one leg crossed 
upon the saddle, lazily smoking. He was a low, squat Hercules, 
free of speech and frank of nature. In battle he always laughed; 
only when eating was he serious. What reverence he had came 
from the appetite. The crumbs that fell from his long, yellow 
beard were his benediction. 

Other branded horses were hitched about, easy of access and 
unnoted of owner. The three men came into the street, behind them 
a young Mexican captain handsome as Adonis. This captain led 
thirty-five soldiers, with eyes to the front and guns at a trail. 

Jim Wood lounged to the door of a cafe and remarked them as 
they filed by. As he returned, he spoke to Martin Kritzer, toying 
with an Indian girl, beaded and beautiful. 

" They are in skirmishing order. Old Joe has delivered the 
arms; it may be we shall take them back again." 

One of the men went straight up to Ike Berry, as he sat cross- 
legged upon his horse, and laid his hand upon the horse's bridle. 

Ike knew him and spoke to him cheerily: 

" How now, comrade?" 

Short answer, and curt: 

" This is my horse; he wears my brand; I have followed him to 
Mexico. Dismount!" 

A long white wreath of smoke curled up from Ike's meerschaum 
in surprise. Even the pipe entered a protest. The old battle-smile 
came back to his face, and those who were nearest and knew him 
best, knew that a dead man would soon lay upon the street. He 
knocked the ashes from his pipe musingly; he put the disengaged 



AN UNWRITTEN LSAF OF THE WAR. 267 

foot back gently ia the stirrup; lie rose up all of a sudden the very 
incarnation of murder; there was a white gleam in the air; a heavy 
saber that lifted itself up and circled, and when it fell a stalwart arm 
was shredded away, as a girl might sever a silken chain or the ten- 
drils of a vine. The ghastly stump, not over four inches from the 
shoulder, spouted blood at every heart throb. The man fell as one 
paralyzed. A shout arose. The Mexicans spread out like a fan, 
and when the fan closed it had surrounded Berry, and Williams, 
and Kirtley, and Collins, and Armistead, and Langhorne, and Henry 
Childs, and Jim Wood, and Rudd, and Moreland, and Boswell, and 
McDougall, and the brothers Kritzer. Yowell alone broke through 
the cordon and rushed to Shelby. 

Shelby was sitting in a saloon discussing cognac and Catalan with 
the Englishman. On the face of the last there was a look of sorrow. 
Ooald it have been possible that the sombre shadows of the Salinas 
were already beginning to gather about his brow? 

A glance convinced Shelby that Yowell was in trouble. 

" What is it?" he asked. 

" They are after the horses." 

"What horses?" 

" The branded horses; those obtained from the Rosser ranche." 

" Ah! and after we have delivered the arms, too, Mexican like—. 
Mexican like." 

He arose as he spoke and looked out upon the street. Some 
revolvers were being fired. These, in the white heat of the after- 
noon, sounded as the tapping of woodpeckers. Afterward a steady 
roar of riiies told how the battle went. 

"The rally! the rally! — sound the rally!" Shelby cried to his 
bugler, as he dashed down to where the Mexicans were swarming 
about Berry and the few men nearest to him. " We have eaten of 
their salt, and they have betrayed us; we have come to them as 
friends, and they would strip us like barbarians. It is war again — 
war to the knife! " 

At this moment the wild, piercing notes of an American bugle 
were heard — clear, penetrating, defiant — notes that told of sore stress 
among comrades, and pressing need of succor. 

The laughter died in the cafes as a night wind when the morning 
comes. The bugle sobered all who were drunk with drink or dal- 
liance. Its voice told of danger near and imminent — of a field 
needing harvesters who knew how to die. 

The men swarmed out of every door- way — poured from under 
every portal — flushed, furious, ravenous for blood. They saw the 
Mexicans in the square, the peril of Berry and those nearest to him, 
and they asked no further questions. A sudden crash of revolvers 
came first, close and deadly; a yell, a shout, and then a fierce, hot 
cnarge. Ras. Woods, with a short Enfield rifle in his hand, stood 



268 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

fair in the street looking up at the young Mexican Captain with his 
cold gray eyes that had in them never a light of pity. As the press 
gathered about him, the rifle crept straight to the front and rested 
there a moment, fixed as fate. It looked as if he was aiming at a 
flower — the dark olive beauty of the Spaniard was so superb. 

"Spare himi" shouted a dozen reckless soldiers in a breath, 
** he is too young and too handsome to die." 

la vain! A sharp, sudden ring was the response; the Captain 
tossed his arms high in the air, leaped up suddenly as if to catch 
something above his head, and fell forward upon his face, a corpse. 
A wail of women arose upon the sultry evening — such as may have 
been heard in David's household when back from the tangled brush- 
wood they brought the beautiful Absalom. 

" The life vipon his yelloAv hair. 
But not within his eyes," 

The work that f olloAved was quick enough and deadly enough 
to appal the stoutest. Seventeen Mexicans were killed, including 
the Captain, together with the two Americans who had caused the 
encounter. The third, strange to say, recovered from his ghastly 
wound, and can tell to this day, if he still lives, of the terrible 
prowess of that American soldier who shredded his arm away as a 
scythe blade might a handful of summer wheat. 

A dreadful commotion fell upon Piedras Negras after the battle 
in the street had been finished. The long roll was beaten, and the 
Mexican garrison rushed to arms. Shelby's men were infuriated 
beyond all immediate control, and mounted their horses without 
orders for a further battle. One detachment, led by Williams, 
swept down to where the artillery and ammunition wagons were 
packed and dispersed the guard after a rattling broadside. Lang- 
horne laid hands upon the Custom-house and huddled its sentinels 
in a room as so many boys that needed punishment. Separate 
parties under Fell, Winship, Henry Chiles, Kirtley, Jim Wood and 
Martin Kirtzer seized upon the skiffs and the boats at the wharf. 
They meant to pillage and sack the town, and burn it afterward. 
Women went wailing through the streets; the church bells rang 
furiously; windows were darkened and barricaded; and over all the 
din and turmoil — the galloping of horses, and the clanking of steel 
— arose the harsh, gathering cry of the Mexican long roll — sullen, 
hoarse, discordant. Shelby stormed at his men, and threatened. 
For the first and the last time in his career, they had passed beyond 
his keeping. At a critical juncture Governor Biesca ruebed down 
into the square, pale, his hat off, pleading in impassioned Spanish, 
apologizing in all the soft vowels known to that soft and sounding 
language. 

Shelby would bow to him in great gravity, understanding not 
one word, conversing in English when the tide of Spanish had run 
itself out: 



AN tJN\yRTTTEr;r leaf of the war. 269 

"It's mostly Greek to me, Governor, but the devil is in the boys, 
for all that." 

Discipline triumphed at last, however, and one by one the men 
came back to their duty and their obedience. They formed a solid, 
ominous looking column in front of headquarters, dragging with 
them the cannon that had been sold, and the cannon they had cap- 
tured from the enemy. 

" We want to sleep to-night," they said, in their grim soldier 
humor, "and for fear of Vesuvius, we have brought the crater with 
us." 

As the night deepened, a sudden calm fell upon the city. Biesca 
had sent his own troops to barracks, and had sworn by every saint 
in the calendar that for the hair of every American hurt he would 
sacrifice a hecatomb of Mexicans. He feared, and not without 
cause, the now thoroughly aroused and desperate men who were 
inflamed by drink, and who had good reason for much ill-will and 
hatred. To Shelby's assurances of safety he offered a multitude of 
bows, each one more profound and more lowly than the other, until 
at last, from the game of war, the two chiefs had become to play a 
game of diplomacy. Biesca wanted his cannon back, and Shelby 
wanted his money for them. In the end, both were satisfied. 

The men had gone to quarters, and supper was being cooked. 
To the feeling of revenge had been added at last one of forgiveness. 
Laughter and songs issued again from the wine-shops. At this 
moment a yell was heard — a yell that was a cross between an 
Indian war-whoop and a Mexican cattle-call. A crowd of soldiers 
gathered hastily in the street. Again the yell was repeated, this 
time nearer, clearer, shriller than before. Much wonderment en- 
sued. The day had been one of surprises. To a fusilade there was 
to be added a frolic. Up the street leading from the river, two men 
approached slowly, having a third man between them. When near 
enough, the two first were recognized as the soldiers, Joseph More- 
land and William Fell. The other man, despite the swarthy hue of 
his countenance, was ghastly pale. He had to be dragged rather 
than led along. Fell had his sabre drawn, Moreland his revolver. 
The first was fierce enough to perform amputation ; the last suave 
enough to administer chloroform. 

When Moreland reached the edge of the crowd he shouted : 

•' Make way, MIssourlaus, and therefore barbarians, for the only 
living and animated specimen of the genus Polyglott now upon the 
North American continent. Look at him, you heathens, and uncover 
yourselves. Draw nigh to him, you savages, and fall upon your 
knees. Touch him, you blood-drinkers, and make the sign of the 
cross." 

" What did you call him?" asked Armistead. 



270 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

"A Polyglott, you Fejjs Islander; a living dictionary; a 
human mausoleum with the bones of fifty languages ; a lusua 
naturae in a land of garlic, stilettos and straw hats," 

The man himself was indeed a curiosity. Born of Creole 
parents in New Orleans, he had been everywhere and had seen 
everything. When captured he was a clerk in the custom house 
French, Spanish, English, Italian, German^ modern Greek, Gumbo 
French, Arabic, Indian dialects without number, and two score or 
so of patois rolled off from his tongue in harsh or hurried accents 
accordingly as the vowels or the consonants were uppermost. He 
charmed Shelby from the beginning. When he felt that he was 
free his blood began to circulate again like quicksilver Invited to 
supper, he remained late over his wine, singing songs in all manner 
of languages, and boasting in all manner of tongues. When he 
bowed himself out his voice had in it the benediction that follows 
prayer. 

That night he stole $3,000. 

The money for the arms and the ammunition had been stored in 
the custom house and he had the key. The next morning a sack 
was missing. Biesca swore, Shelby seemed incredulous, the Poly- 
glott only smiled. Between the oath and the smile there was this 
difference : the first came from empty pockets, the last from more 
money than the pockets could hold. Master of many languages, he 
ended by being master of the situation. 

In the full flow of the Polyglott's eloquence, however, Shelby 
forgot his loss, and yielded himself again to the invincible chaims 
of his conversation. When they parted for the last time Shelby had 
actually given him a splendid pistol, ivory-handled, and wrought 
about the barrel with gold and figure work . So much for erudition. 
Even in the desert there are date and palm trees. 

The formal terms of the transfer were concluded at last. Biesca 
received his arms, paid his money, buried the dead soldiers, and 
blessed all who came into Piedras Negras and went out from it. His 
last blessings were his best. They came from his heart and 
from the happy consciousness that the Americans were about to de- 
part forever from the midst of his post of honor and his possessions. 

Marching southward from the town, the column had reached 
the rising ground that overlooked the bold sweep of the rapid river, 
the green shores of Texas beyond, the fort on the hill, from which 
a battered Confederate flag yet hung, and a halt was called. Rear 
and van the men were silent. All eyes were turned behind them. 
Some memories of home and kindred may have come then as dreams 
come in the night; some placid past may have outlined itself as a mirage 
against the clear sky of the distant north; some voice may have 
spoken even then to ears that heard and heeded, but the men made no 
sign. The bronzed faces never softened. As the ranks closed up, 



' AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 271 

waiting, a swift horseman galloped up from the town— a messenger. 
He sought the leader and found him by instinct. 

* • Amigo,''' he said, giving his hand to Shelby. 

' ' Friend, yes. It is a good name. Would you go with us? " 

"No." 

"What will you have? " 

"One last word at parting. Once upon a time in Texas an 
American was kind to me. Maybe he saved my life. I would be- 
lieve so, because I want a reason for what is done between us." 

' ' Speak out fairly, man. If you need help, tell me." 

" No help, Senor, no money, no horses, no friendship— none of 
these. Only a few last words." 

"What are they?" 

" Beware of the Salinas!" 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Salinas was a river, and why should one beware of it? Its 
water was cool, the shade of its trees grateful, its pasturage abun- 
dant, and why then should the command not rest some happy days 
upon its further banks, sleeping and dreaming? Because of the 
ambush. 

Where the stream crossed the high, hard road leading down to 
Monterey, it presented on either side rough edges of rock, slippery 
and uncertain. To the left some falls appeared. In the mad vortex 
of water, ragged pinnacles reared themselves up, hoary with the 
white spray of the breakers — grim cut-throats in ambush in mid 
river. 

Below these falls there were yet other crossings, and above them 
only two. Beyond the fords no living thing could make a passage 
sure. Quicksands and precipices abounded, and even in its solitude 
the river had fortified itself. Tower and moat and citadel all were 
there, and when the flood-time came the Salinas was no longer a 
river — it was a barrier that was impassable. 

All the country round about was desolate. What the French 
had spared the guerrillas had finished. To be sure that no human 
habitation was left, a powerful war i')arty of Lipan IndiaLs came 
after the guerrillas, spearing the cattle and demolishing the farming 
implements. These Lipans were a cruel and ferocious tribe, dwelling 
in the mountains of Sonora, and descending to the plains to slaugh- 
ter and desolate. Fleetly mounted, brave at an advantage, shooting 
golden bullets oftener than leaden ones, crafty as all Indians are, 
superior to all Mexicans, served by women whom they had captured 
and enslaved, they were crouched in ambush upon the further side 
of the Salinas, four hundred strong. 

The weaker robber when in presence of the stronger is always 
the most blood-thirsty. The lion will strike down, but the jackal 
devours. The Lipans butchered and scalped, but the Mexicans 
mutilated the dead and tortured the living. 

With the Lipans, therefore, there were three hundred native 
Mexicans, skilled in all the intricacies of the chapparal — keen upon 
all the scents that told of human prey or plunder. As ghastly skir- 
mishers upon the outposts of the arabushment, these had come a 
day's march from the river to where a little village was at peace and 
undefended. As Shelby marched through there was such handi- 
work visible of tiger prowess, that he turned to Elliott, that grim 
Saul who never smiled, and said to him, curtly: 

" Should the worst come to the worst, keep one pistol ball for 
yourself, Colonel. Better suicide than a fate like this." 

272 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 273 

The spectacle was horrible beyond comparison. Men Lung sus- 
pended from door-faciugs literally flayed alive. Huge strips of skin 
dangled from them as tattered garments might hang. Under some 
a slow fire had been kindled, until strangulation came as a tardy 
mercy for relief . There were the bodies of some children among 
the slain, and one beautiful woman, not yet attacked by the ele- 
ments, seemed only asleep. The men hushed their rough voices as 
they rode by her, and more than one face lit up with a strange pity 
that had in it the light of a terrible vengeance. 

The village with its dead was left behind, and a deep silence fell 
upon the column, rear and van. The mood of the stranger English- 
man grew sterner and sadder, and when the night and the camp 
came he looked more keenly to his arms than was his wont, and 
seemed to take a deeper interest in his horse. 

Gen. Magruder rode that day with the men — the third of July. 
" To-morrow will be the Fourth, boys," he said, when dismount- 
iag, " and perhaps we shall have fire works." 

Two deserters — two Austrians from the Foreign Legion under 
Jeanningros at Monterey — straggled into the picket lines before 
tattoo and were brought directly to Shelby. They believed death 
to be certain and so they told the truth. 

" Where do you go? " asked Shelby. 

"To Texas." 

** And why to Texas?" 

" For a home; for any life other than a dog's life; for freedom, 
for a country." 

" You are soldiers, and yet you desert?" 

" We were soldiers, and yet they made robbers of us. We do 
not hate the Mexicans, They never harmed Austria, our country." 

" Vf here did you cross the Salinas?" 

" At the ford upon the main road." 

" Who were there and what saw you?" 

" No living thing, General. Nothing but trees and rocks and 
water." 

They spoke simple truth. Safer back from an Indian jungle 
might these men have come, than from a passage over the Salinas 
with a Lipan and Mexican ambushment near at hand. 

It was early in the afternoon of the Fourth of July, 1865, when 
the column approached the Salinas river. The march had been 
long, hot and dusty. The men were in a vicious humor, and in 
excellent fighting condition. They knew nothing of the ambush- 
ment, and had congratulated themselves upon plentiful grass and 
refreshing water. 

Shelby called a halt and ordered forward twenty men under com- 
mand of Williams to reconnoitre. As they were being told off for 
the duty, the commander spoke to his surbordinate: 



274 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

" It may be cliild's play or warrior's work, but whatever it is, let 
me know quickly." 

Williams' blue eyes flashed. He had caught some glimpses of 
the truth, and he knew there was danger ahead. 

" Any further orders, General?" he asked as he galloped away. 

"None. Try the ford and penetrate the brush beyond. If you 
find one rifle barrel among the trees, be sure there are five hundred 
close at hand. Murderers love to mass themselves." 

Williams had ridden forward with his detachment some five 
minutes' space, when the column was again put in motion. From 
the halt to the river's bank was an hour's ride. Before commencing 
the ride, however, Shelby had grouped together his officers, and 
thus addressed them : 

" You know as w^ell as I do what is waiting for us at the river, 
which knowledge is simply nothing at all. This side Piedras Negras 
a friendly Mexican spoke some words at parting, full of warning, 
and doubtless sincere. He at least believed in danger, and so do I. 
Williams has gone forward to flush the game, if game there be, and 
here before separating I wish to make the rest plain to you. Listen, 
all. Above and below the main road, the road we are now upon, 
there are fords where men might cross at ease and horses find safe and 
certain footing. I shall try none of them. When the battle opens, 
and the bugle call is heard, you will form your men in fours and 
follow me. The question is to gain the further bank, and after that 
we shall see." 

Here something of the old battle ardor came back to his face, and 
his eyes caught the eyes of the officers. Like his own they were full 
of fire and high resolve. 

"One thing more," he said, "before we march. Come here, 
Elliott." 

The scarred man came, quiet as the great horse he rode. 

" You will lead the forlorn hope. It will take ten men to form 
it. That is enough to give up of my precious ones. Call for volun- 
teers — for men to take the water first, and draw the first merciless 
fire. After that we will all be in at the death." 

Ten were called for, two hundred responded. They had but 
scant knowledge of what was needed, and scantier care. In the 
ranks of the ten, however, there were those who were fit to fight 
for a kingdom. They were Maurice, Langhorne, James Wood, 
George Winship, William Fell, Ras. Woods, James Kirtley, 
McDougall, James Rudd, James Chiles and James Cundiff. 

Cundiff is staid, and happy, and an editor sans peur et sans 
reproche to-day in St. Joseph. He will remember, amid all the mul- 
tifarious work of his hands— his locals, his editorials, his type-set- 
ting, his ledger, his long nights of toil and worry — and to his last 
day, that terrible charge across the Salinas, water to the saddle- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 275 

girths, and seven hundred muskets pouring forth an unseen and 
infernal fire. 

The march went on, and there was no news of Williams. It 
was three o'clock in the afternoon. The sun's rays seemed to pene- 
trate the very flesh. Great clouds of dust arose, and as there was 
no wind to carry it away, it settled about the men and the horses as' 
a garment that was oppressive. 

Elliott kept right onward, peering straight to the front, watching. 
Between the advance and the column some two hundred paces inter- 
vened. When the ambush was struck this distance hud decreased 
to one hundred paces — when the work was over the two bodies had 
become one. Elliott was wounded and under his dead horse, 
Cundifl was wounded, Langhorne was wounded, Winship was 
wounded, and Wood, and McDougall, and Fell. Some of the dead 
were never seen again. The falls below the ford received them and 
the falls buried them. Until the judgment day, perhaps, will they 
keep their precious sepulchres. 

Over beyond the yellow dust a long green line arose against the 
horizon. This was the further edge of the Salinas, dense with trees, 
and cool in the distance. The column had reached its shadow at 
last. Then a short, sharp volley came from the front, and then a 
great stillness. One bugle note followed the volley. The column, 
moved by a viewless and spontaneous impulse, formed into fours 
and galloped on to the river — Elliott leading, and keeping his dis- 
tance well. 

The volley which came from the front had been poured sud- 
denly into the face of Williams. It halted him. His orders were 
to uncover the ambush, not to attack it, and the trained soldier 
knew as well the number waiting beyond the river by the ringing of 
their muskets as most men would have known after the crouching 
forms had been seen and counted. 

He retreated beyond range and waited. Elliott passed on beyond 
and formed his little band — the ten dauntless volunteers who were 
anxious to go first and who were not afraid to die. 

Shelby halted the main column still further beyond rifle range 
and galloped straight up to Williams. 

'•'You found them, it seems." 

*' Yes, General." i 

" How many?" ' 

" Eight hundred at the least." 

"How armed?" 

*' With muskets." 

" Good enough. Take your place in the front ranksl I shall 
lead the column." 

Turning to Elliott, he continued: 

"Advance instantly. Colonel. The sooner over the sooner to 
sleep. Take the water as you find it, and ride straight forward. 



276 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Williams says there are eight hundred, and Williams is rarely mis- 
taken. Forward ! " 

Elliott placed himself at the head of his forlorn hope and drevV 
his saber. With those who knew him, this meant grim work some- 
where. Cundiff spoke to Langhorne upon his right: 

" Have you said your prayers, Captain? " 

"Too late now. Those who pray best pray first." 

From a walk the horses moved into a trot. Elliott threw his 
eyes backward over his men and cried out: 

"Keep your pistols dry. It will be hot work on the other 
side:" 

As they struck the water some Indian skirmishers in front of 
the ambush opened fire. The bullets threw the white foam up in 
front of the leading files, but did no damage. By and by the stray 
shots deepened into a volley. 

Elliott spoke again, and no more after until the battle was 
finished: 

" Steady men!" 

Vain warning! The rocks were not surer and firmer. In the 
rear the column, four deep and well in hand, thundered after the 
advance. Struggling through the deep water, Elliott gained the 
bank unscathed. Then the fight grew desperate. The skirmishers 
were driven in pell-mell, the ten men pressing on silently. As yet 
no American had fired a pistol. A yell arose from the woods, long, 
wild, piercing — a yell that had exultation and murder in it. Wi'dly 
shrill and defiant, Shelby's bugle answered it. Then the woods in 
a moment started into infernal life. Seven hundred muskets flashed 
out from the gloom. A powder pall enveloped the advance, and 
when the smoke lifted Elliott was under his dead horse, badly 
wounded; Cundiff 's left arm was dripping blood; Langhorne, and 
Winship, and McDougall were down and bleeding; Fell, shot 
through the thigh, still kept his seat, and Wood, his left wrist dis- 
abled, pressed on with the bridle in his teeth, and his right arm 
using his unerring revolver. Kirtley and Rudd and Chiles and 
Ras. Woods alone of the ten were untouched, and they stood over 
their fallei comrades, fighting desperately. 

The terrible volley had reached the column in the river, and a 
dozen saddles were emptied. The dead the falls received; the 
wounded were caught up by their comrades and saved from death by 
drowning. Shelby pressed right onward. At intervals the stern 
notes of the bugles rang out, and at intervals a great hearty cheer 
came from the ranks of the Americans. Some horses fell in the 
stream never to rise again, for the bullets plowed up the column and 
made stark work on every side. None faltered. Pouring up from 
the river as a great tide the men galloped into line on the right and 
left of the road and waited under fire until the last man had made 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 277 

his landing sure. The Englishman rode by Shelby's side, a battle- 
light on his fair face — a face that was, alas! too soon to be wan and 
gray and drawn with agony. 

The attack was a hurricane. Thereafter no man knew how the 
killing went on. The battle was a massacre. The Mexicans first 
broke, and after them the Indians. No quarter was shown. 
"Kill," "kill," resounded from the woods, and the roar of the 
revolver vollej^s told how the Americans were at work. The English- 
man's horse was killed. He seized another and mounted it. Fight- 
ing on the right of the road, he went ahead even of his commander. 
The mania of battle seemed to have taken possession of his brain. 
A musket ball shattered his left leg from the ankle to the knee. He 
turned deadly pale, but he did not halt. Fifty paces further, and 
another ball, striking him fair in the breast, knocked him clear 
from the saddle. This time he did not rise. The blood that stained 
all his garments crimson was his life's blood. He saw death creep- 
ing slowly towards him with outstretched skeleton hands, and he 
faced him with a smile. The rough, bearded men took him up 
tenderly and bore him backward to the river's edge. His wounds 
were dressed and a soft bed of blankets made for him. In vain. 
Beyond human care or skill, he lay in the full glory of the summer 
sunset, waiting for something he had tried long and anxiously to gain. 

The sounds of the strife died away. While pursuit was worth 
victims, the pursuit went on — merciless, vengeful, unrelenting. 
The dead were neither counted nor buried. Over two hundred fell 
in the chapparal and died there. The impenetrable nature of the 
undergrowth alone saved the remainder of the fugitives. Hundreds 
abandoned their horses and threw away their guns. Not a prisoner 
remained to tell of the ambush or the number of the foe. The vic- 
tory was dearly bought, however. Thirty-seven wounded on the 
part of Shelby needed care; nineteen of his dead were buried be- 
fore the sun went down; and eight the waters of the river closed 
over until the judgment day. 

An hour before sunset the Englishman was still alive. 

"Would you have a priest?" Shelby asked him, as he bent low 
over the wounded man, great marks of pain on his fair, stern face. 

" None. No word nor prayer can avail me now. I shall die as 
I have lived." 

" Is there any message you would leave behind? Any token to 
those who may watch and wait long for your coming? Any fare- 
well to those beyond the sea, who know and love you?" 

His eyes softened just a little, and the old hunted look died out 
from his features. 

" Who among you speaks French?" he asked, 

" Governor Reynolds," was the reply. 

" Send him to me, please." 



278 SHELDY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

It was done. Governor Reynolds came to the man's bedside, 
and with him a crowd of soldiers. He motioned them away. His 
last words on earth were for the ears of one man alone, and this is 
his confession, a free translation of which was given the author by 
Governor Reynolds, the original being placed in the hands of the 
British Minister in Mexico, Sir James Scarlett; 

" I was the youngest son of an English Baron, born, perhaps, to 
bad luck, and certainly to ideas of life that were crude and unsatis- 
factory. The army was opened to me, and I entered it. A lieuten- 
ant at twenty-two in the Fourth Royals, I had but one ambition, 
that to rise in my profession and take rank among the great soldiers 
of the nation. I studied hard, and soon mastered the intricacies of 
the art, but promotion was not easy, and there was no war. 

" In barracks the life is an idle one with the officers, and at times 
they grow impatient and fit for much that is reprehensible and 
unsoldierly. We were quartered at Tyrone, in Ireland, where a 
young girl lived who was faultlessly fair and beautiful. She was 
the toast of the regiment. Other officers older and colder than 
myself admired her and flattered her; I praised her and worshiped 
her. Perhaps it M^as an infatuation; to me at least it was immor- 
tality and religion. 

"*Oae day, I remember it yet, for men are apt to remember those 

thing which change the whole current of the blood, I sought her out 
and told her of my love. Whether at my vehemence or my desper- 
ation, I know not, but she turned pale and would have left me with- 
out an answer. The suspense was unbearable, and I pressed the 
poor thing harder and harder. At last she turned at bay, wild, 
tremulous, and declared through her tears that she did not and could 
not love me. The rest was plain. A young cornet in the same reg- 
iment, taller by a head than I, and blonde and boyish, had baffled 
us all, and had taken from me, what in my bitter selfishness, I could 
n t see that I never had. 

"Maybe, my brain has not been always clear. Sometimes I 
have thought that a cloud would come between the past and present 
and that I could not see plainly what had taken place in all the desolate 
days of my valueless life. Somtimes I have prayed, too. I believe 
even the devils pray no matter how impious or useless such prayer 
may be. 

" I need not detail all the ways a baffled lover has to overthrow 
the lover who is successful. I pursued the cornet with insults and 
bitter words, and yet be avoided me. One day I struck him, and 
such was the indignation exhibited by his comrades, that he no 
longer considered. A challenge followed the blow, and then a meet- 
ing. Good people say that the devil helps his own. Caring very 
little for God or devil, I fought him at daylight and killed him. 
Since then I have been an outcast and a wanderer. Tried by a 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 279 

military commission and disgraced from all rank. I went first to 
India and sought desperate service wherever it was to be found. 
Wounded often and scorched by fever, I could not die. In the 
Crimea the old, hard fortune followed me, and it was the same 
struggle with bullets that always gave pain without pain's antidote. 
No rest anywhere. Perhaps I lived the life that was in me. Who 
knows? Let him who is guiltless cast the first stone. There is 
much blood upon my hands, and here and there a good deed that 
will atone a little, it may be, in the end. Of my life in America 
it is needless to talk. Aimless, objectless, miserable, I am here 
dying to-day as a man dies who has neither fear nor hope. I thank 
you very much for your patience, and for all these good men would 
have done for me, but the hour has come. Good-bye." 

He lifted himself up and turned his face fair to the west. Some 
beams of the setting sun, like a benediction, rested upon the long 
blonde hair, and upon the white set lips, drawn now and gray with 
agony. No man spoke in all the rugged band, flushed with victory, 
and weary with killing. In the trees a little breeze lingered, and 
^ome birds flitted and sang, though far apart. 

For a few moments the Englishman lay as one asleep. Sud- 
denly he roused himself and spoke: 

" It is so dreary to die in the night. One likes to have the sun- 
light for this." 

Governor Reynolds stooped low as if to listen, drew back and 
whispered a prayer. The man was dead! 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Evil tidings have wings and fly as a bird. Through some proc- 
ess, no matter what, and over some roads, no matter where, the 
news was carried to General Jeanningros, holding outermost watch 
at Monterey, that Shelby had sold all his cannon and muskets, all his 
ammunition and war supplies, to Governor Biesca, a loyal follower 
of Benito Juarez. Staightway the Frenchman flew into a passion 
and made some vows that were illy kept. 

"Let me but get my hands upon these Americans," he said, 
*' these canaille, and after that we can see." 

He did get his hands upon them, but in lieu of the sword they 
bore the olive branch. 

The march into the interior from the Salinas river was slow and 
toilsome. Very weak and sore, the wounded had to be waited for 
and tenderly carried along. To leave them would have been to 
murder them, for all the country was up in arms, seeking for some 
advantage which never came to gain the mastery over the Americans. 
At night and from afar, the outlying guerrillas would make great 
show of attack, discharging platoons of musketry at intervals, and 
charging upon the picquets at intervals, but never coming seriously 
to blows. This kind of warfare, however, while it was not danger- 
ous, was annoying. It interfered with the sleep of the soldiers and 
kept them constantly on the alert. They grew sullen in some in- 
stances and threatened reprisals. Shelby's unceasing vigilance 
detected the plot before it had culminated, and one morning before 
reaching Lampasas, he ordered the column under arms that he 
might talk to the men. 

" There are some signs among you of bad discipline," he said, 
'* and I have called you out that you may be told of it. What have 
you to complain about? Those who follow on your track to kill 
you? Very well, complain of them if you choose, and fight them 
to your heart's content, but lift not a single hand against the Mexi- 
cans who are at home and the non-combatants. We are invaders, 
it is true but we are not murderers. Those who follow me are 
incapable of this; those who are not shall not follow me. From 
this moment forward I regard you all as soldiers, and if I am mis- 
taken in my estimate, and if amid the ranks of those who have 
obeyed me for four years some marauders have crept in, I order now 
that upon these a soldier's work be done. Watch them well. He 
who robs, he who insults women, he who oppresses the unarmed 
and the aged, is an outcast to all the good fellowship of this com- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 281 

mand and shall be driven forth as an enemy to us all. Hereafter 
be as you have ever been, brave true and honorable." 

There was no longer any more mutiny. The less disciplined 
felt the moral pressure of their comrades and behaved themselves. 
The more unscrupulous set the Mexicans on one side and the Ameri- 
cans on the other, and elected to remain peaceably in the ranks 
which alone could shelter and protect them. The marches became 
shorter and the bivouacs less pleasant and agreeable. Although it 
was not yet time for the rainy season, &cn,e rain fell in the more 
elevated mountain ranges, and some chilling nights made comfoit 
impossible. Now and then some days of camping, too, were 
requisite — days in which arms were cleaned ard ammunition 
inspected jealously. The American horses were undergoing accli- 
matization, and in the inevitable fever which develops itself the 
affectionate cavalryman sits by his horse night and day until the 
crisis is passed. Well nursed, this fever is not dangerous. At the 
crisis, however, woe to the steed who loses his blanket, and woe to 
the rider who sleeps while the cold night air is driving in death 
through every pore. Accordingly as the perspiration is checked 
or encouraged is the balance for or against the life of the horse. 
There horses were gold, and hence the almost paternal solicitude. 

Dr. John S. Tisdale, the lord of many patients and pill-boxes 
to-day in Platte, was the veterinary surgeon, and from the healer 
of men he had become to be the healer of horses. Shaggy-headed 
and wide of forehead in the regions of ideality, he had a new name 
for every disease, and. a new remedy for every symptom. An 
excellent appetite had given him a hearty laugh. During all the 
long night watches he moved about as a Samaritan, his kindly face 
set in its frame-work of gray — his fifty years resting as lightly upon 
him as the night air upon the mountains of San Juan de Aguilar. 
He prayeth well who smoketh well, and the good Doctor's suppli- 
cations went up all true and rugged many a time from his ancient 
pipe when the hoar frosts fell and deep sleep came down upon the 
camp as a silent angel to scatter sweet dreams of home and native 
land. 

Good nursing triumphed. The crisis of the climate passed 
away, and from the last tedious camp the column moved rapidly on 
toward Lampasas. Dangers thickened. Content to keep the 
guerrillas at bay, Shelby had permitted no scouting parties and 
forbidden all pursuit. 

" Let them alone," he would say to those eager for adventure, 
•' and husband your strength. In a land of probable giants we have 
no need to hunt possible chimeras." 

These guerrillas, however, became emboldened. On the trail 
of a timid or wounded thing they are veritable wolves. Their long 
gallop can never tire. In the night they are superb. Upon the 



282 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

flanks, in the front or rear, it is one eternal ambush — one incessant 
rattle of musketry which harms nothing, but which yet annoys like 
the singing of mosquitos. At last they brought about a swift rec- 
oning — one of those sudden things which leave little behind save a 
trail of blood and a moment of savage killing. 

The column had reached to within two day's journey of Lam- 
pasas, Some spurs of the mountain ran down to the road, and some 
clusters of palm trees grouped themselves at intervals by the way- 
side. The palm is a pensive tree, having a voice in the wind that 
is sadder than the pine — a sober, solemn voice, a voice like the 
sound of ruflOied cerements when the corpse is given to the coflin. 
Even in the sunlight they are dark; even in the tropics no vine 
clings to them, no blossom is born to them, no bird is housed by 
them, and no flutter of wings makes music for them. Strange and 
shapely, and coldly chaste, they seem like human and desolate 
things, standing all alone in the midst of luxurious nature, un- 
blessed of the soil, and unloved of the dev/ and the sunshine. 

In a grove of these the column halted for the night. Beyond 
them was a pass guarded by crosses. In that treacherous land these 
are a growth indigenous to the soil. They flourish rowhere else in 
such abundance. Wherever a deed of violence is done, a cross is 
planted; wherever a traveler is left upon his face in a pool of blood, 
a cross is reared; wherever a grave is made wherein lies the 
murdered one, there is seen a cross. No matter who does the deed 
— whether Indian, or don, orcommandante, a cross must mark the 
spot, and as the pious wayfarer journeys by he lays all reverently a 
stone at the feet of the sacred symbol, breathing a pious prayer and 
telling a bead or two for the soul's salvation. 

On the left a wooded bluff ran down abruptly to a stream. 
Beyond the stream and near the palms, a grassy bottom spread itself 
out, soft and grateful. Here the blankets were spread, and here the 
horses grazed their fill. A young moon, clear and white, hung low 
in the west, not sullen nor red, but a tender moon full of the beams 
that lovers seek, and full of the voiceless imagery which gives pas- 
sion to the songs of the night, and pathos to deserted and dejected 
swains. 

As the moon set the horses were gathered together and tethered 
in amid the palms. Then a deep silence fell upon the camp, for the 
sentinels were beyond its confines, and all withinside slept the sleep 
of the tired and healthy. 

It may have been midnight; it certainly was cold and dark. The 
fires had gone out, and there was a white mist like a shroud creep- 
ing up the stream and settling upon the faces of the sleepers. On 
the far right a single pistol shot arose, clear and resonant. Shelby, 
who slumbered like a night bird, lifted himself up from his blank- 
ets and spoke in an undertone to Thrailkill: 



. AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 283 

" Who has the post at the mouth of the pass? " 

"Jo. Macey." 

" Then something is stirring. Macey never fired at a shadow in 
his life." 

The two men listened. One a grim guerrilla himself, with the 
physique of a Cossack and the heariug of a Comanche. The other 
having in his hands the lives of all the silent and inert sleepers 
lying still and grotesque under the white shroud of the mountain mist. 

Nothing was heard for an hour. The two men went to sleep 
again, but not to dream. Of a sudden and unseen the mist was 
lifted, and in its place a sheet of flame so near to the faces of the 
men that it might have scorched them. Two hundred Mexicans 
had crept down the mountain, and to the edge of the stream, and 
had fired point blank into the camp. It seemed a miracle, but not 
a man was touched. Lying flat upon the ground and wrapped up 
in their blankets, the whole volley, meant to be murderous, had 
swept over them. 

Shelby was the first upon his feet. His voice rang out clear and 
faultless, and without a tremor: 

" Give them the revolver. Charge ! " 

Men awakened from deep sleep grapple with spectres slowly. 
These Mexicans were spectres. Beyond the stream and in amid the 
sombre shadows of the palms, they were invisible. Only the pow- 
der-pall was on the water where the mist had been. 

Unclad, barefooted, heavy with sleep, the men went straight for 
the mountain, a revolver in each hand, Shelby leading. From spec- 
tres the Mexicans had become to be bandits. No quarter was given 
or asked. The rush lasted until the game was flushed, the pursuit 
until the top of the mountain was gained. Over ragged rock and 
cactus and dagger-trees the hurricane poured. The roar of the 
revolvers was deafening. Men died and made no moan, and the 
wounded were recognized only by their voices. When it was over 
the Americans had lost in killed eleven and in wounded seventeen, 
most of the latter slightly, thanks to the darkness and the impetu- 
osity of the attack. In crawling upon the camp the Mexicans had 
tethered their horses upon the further side of the mountain. The 
most of these fell into Shelby's hands, together with the bodies of 
the two leaders, Juan Anselmo, a renegade priest, and Antonio 
Flores, a young Cuban who had sold his sister to a wealthy hacien- 
daro and turned robber, and sixty-nine of their followers. 

It was noon the next day before the march was resumed— noon 
with the sun shining upon the fresh graves of eleven dauntless 
Americans sleeping their last sleep, amid the palms and the crosses, 
until the resurrection day. 

There was a grand fandango at Lampasas when the column 
reached the city. The bronzed, foreign faces of the strangers 



284 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

attracted much of curiosity and more of comment; but no notes in 
the music jarred, no halt in the flying feet of the dancers could be 
discovered. Shelby camped just beyond the suburbs, unwilling to 
tiust his men to the blandishments of so much beauty, and to the 
perils of samuch nakedness. 

Stern camp guards soon sentinelled the soldiers, but as the night 
deepened their devices increased, until a good company had escaped 
all vigilance and made a refuge sure with the sweet and swarthy 
scnoritas singing: 

" O yen ! ama I 
Eres alma. 
Soy corazon." 

There were three men who stole out together in mere wantonness 
and exuberance of life — obedient, soldierly men — who were to 
bring back with them a tragedy without a counterpart in all their 
history. None saw Boswell, Walker and Crockett depart — the 
whole command saw them return again, Boswell slashed from chin 
to waist, Walker almost dumb from a bullet through cheeks and 
tongue, aad Crockett, sober and unhurt, yet having over him the 
somber light of as wild a deed as any that stands out from all the 
lawless past of that lawless land. 

Tliese mea, when reaching Lampases, floated into the flood tide 
of the fandango, and danced until the red lights shone with an 
unnatural brilliancy — until the fiery Catalan consumed what little 
of discretion the dancing had left. They sallied out late at night, 
flashed with drink, and having over them the glamour of enchant- 
ing women. They walked on apace in the direction of the camp, 
singing snatches of Bacchanal songs, and laughing boisterously 
under the moonlight which flooded all the streets with gold. In 
the doorway of a house a young Mexican girl stood, her dark face 
looking out coquettishly from her fringe of dark hair. The men 
spoke to her, and she, in her simple, girlish fashion, spoke to the 
men. In Mexico this meant nothing. They halted, however, and 
Crockett advanced from the rest and laid his hand upon the girl's 
shoulder. Around her head and shoulders she wore a rehosa. This 
garment answers at the same time for bonnet and bodice. When 
removed the head is uncovered and the bosom is exposed. Crock- 
ett meant no real harm, although he asked her for a kiss. Before 
she had replied to him, he attempted to take it. 

The hot Southern blood flared up all of a sudden at this, and 
her dark eyes grew furious in a moment. As she drew back from 
him in proud scorn, the rehosa came off, leaving all her bosom bare, 
the long, luxuriant hair falling down upon and over it as a cloud 
that would hide its purity and innocence. Then she uttered a low, 
feminine cry as a signal, followed instantly hy a rush of men who 
drew knives and pistols as they came on. The Americans had no 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 285 

weapons. Not dreaming of danger, and being within sight almost 
of camp, they had left their revolvers behind. Boswell was stabbed 
three times, though not seriously, for he was a powerful man, and 
fought his assailants off. Walker was shot through his tongue and 
both cheeks, and Crockett, the cause of the whole melee, escaped 
unhurt. No pursuit was attempted after the first swift work was 
over. Wary of reprisals, the Mexicans hid themselves as suddenly 
as they had sallied out. There was a young man, however, who 
walked close to Crockett — a young Mexican who spoke no word, 
and who yet kept pace with the American step by step. At first he 
was not noticed. Before the camp guards were reached Crockett, 
now completely sobered, turned upon him and asked: 

"Why do you follow me?" 

"That you may lead me to your General." 

"What do you wish with my General?" 

"Satisfaction." 

At the firing in the city a patrol guard had been thrown out who 
arrested the whole party and carried it straight to Shelby. He was 
encamped upon a wide margin of bottom land, having a river upon 
one side, and some low mountain ridges upon the other. The 
ground where theblankets were spread was velvety with grass. There 
was a bright moon ; the air blowing from the grape gardens and the 
apricot orchards of Lampasa was fragrant and delicious, and the 
soldiers were not sleeping. 

Under the solace of such surroundings Shelby had relaxed a little 
of that grim severity he always manifested toward those guilty of 
unsoldierly conduct, and spoke not harshly to the three men . When 
made acquainted with their hurts, he dismissed them instantly to the 
care of Dr. Tisdale. 

Crockett and the Mexican still lingered, and a crowd of some fifty 
or sixty had gathered around. The first told his story of the melee, and 
told it truthfully. The man was too brave to lie. As an Indian list- 
ening to the approaching footsteps of one whom he itends to scalp, 
the young Mexican listened as a granite pillar vitalized to the whole 
recital. When it was finished he went up close to Shelby, and said 
to him, pointing his finger at Crockett : 

"That man has outraged my sister. I could have killed him, 
but I did not. You Americans are brave, I know; will you be gen- 
erous as well, and give me satisfaction? " 

Shelby looked at Crockett, whose bronzed face, made sterner in 
the moonlight, had upon it a look of curiosity. He at least did not 
understand what was coming. 

"Does the Mexican speak truth, Crockett?" was the question 
asked by the commander of his soldier. 

" Partly; but I meant no harm to the woman. I am incapable of 
that. Drunk I know I was, and reckless, but not willfully guilty, 
General." 



286 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO : 

Shelby regarded him coldly. His voice was so stern when he 
spoke again that the brave soldier hung his head : 

" What business had you to lay your hands upon her at all? How 
often must I repeat to you that the man who does these things is no 
follower of mine? Will you give her brother satisfaction?" 

He drew his revolver almost joyfully and stood proudly up, 
facing his accuser. 

''No! no! not the pistol! " cried the Mexican; " I do not under- 
stand the pistol. The knife, Senor General; is the American afraid 
of the knife?" 

He displayed, as he spoke, a keen, glittering knife and held it 
up in the moonlight. It was white, and lithe, and shone in con- 
trast with the dusky hand which grasped it. 

Not a muscle of Crockett's face moved. He spoke almost gently 
as he turned to his General: 

"The knife, ah! well, so be it. Will some of you give me a 
knife?" 

A knife was handed him and a ring was made. About four 
hundred soldiers formed the outside circle of this ring. These, 
bearing torches in their hands, cast a red glare of light upon the 
arena. The ground under foot was as velvet. The moon, not yet 
full, and the sky without a cloud, rose over all, calm and peaceful 
in the summer night. A hush, as of expectancy, fell upon the camp. 
Those who were asleep, slept on; those who were awake seemed as 
under the influence of an intangible dream. 

Shelby did not forbid the fight. He knew it was a duel to the 
death, and some of the desperate spirit of the combatants passed 
into his own. He merely spoke to an aide: 

" Go for Tisdale. When the steel has finished the surgeon may- 
begin." 

Both men stepped fearlessly into the arena. A third form was 
there, unseen, invisible, and even in Azs presence the traits of the two 
nations were uppermost. The Mexican made the sign of the cross, 
the American tightened his sabre belt. Both may have prayed, 
neither, however, audibly. 

They had no seconds; perhaps none were needed. The Mexican 
took his stand about midway the arena and waited. Crockett 
grasped his knife firmly and advanced upon him. Of the two, he 
was the taller by a head and physically the strongest. Constant 
familiarity with danger for four years had given him a confidence 
the Mexican may not have felt. He had been wounded three 
times, one of which wounds was scarcely healed. This took none 
of his manhood from him, however. 

Neither spoke. The torches flared a little in the night wind, 
now beginning to rise, and the long grass rustled curtly under foot. 
Afterward its green had become crimson. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 387 

Between them some twelve inches of space now intervened. The 
men had fallen back upon the right and the left for their commander 
to see, and he stood looking fixedly at the two as he would upon a 
line of battle. Never before had he gazed upon so strange a sight. 
That great circle of bronzed faces, eager and fierce in the flare of 
torches, had something monstrous yet grotesque about it. The 
civilization of the century had been rolled back, and they were in a 
Roman circus, looking down upon the arena, crowded with gladia- 
tors and jubilant with that strangest of war-cries : Morituvi te 
salutant ! 

The attack was the lightning's flash. The Mexican lowered his 
head, set his teeth hard, and struck fairly at Crockett's breast. Tl:e 
American made a half face to the right, threw his left arm forward 
as a shield, gathered the deadly steel in his shoulder to the hilt aLd 
struck home. How pitiful ! 

A great stream of blood spurted m his face. The tense form of 
the Mexican bent as a willow wand in the wind, swayed helpless]}^ 
and fell backward lifeless, the knife rising up as a terrible protest 
above the corpse. The man's heart was found. 

Cover him up from sight. No need of Dr. Tisdale here. 
There was a wail of women on the still night air, a shudder of 
regret among the soldiers, a dead man on the grass, a sister broken- 
hearted and alone for evermore, and a freed spirit somewhere out in 
eternity with the unknown and the infinite. 



CHAPTER IX. 

General Jeanningros held Monterey with a garrison of five 
thousand French and Mexican soldiers. Among them was the For- 
eign Legion — composed of Americans, English, Irish, Arabs, Turks, 
Germans and Negroes — and the Third French Zouaves, aregimtnt 
unsurpassed for courage and discipline in any army in any nation on 
earth. This regiment afterward literally passed away from service at 
Gravelotte. Like the old Guard at Waterloo, it was destroyed. 

Jeanningros was a soldier who spoke English, who had gray 
hair, who drank absinthe, who had been in the army thirty years, 
who had been wounded thirteen times, and who was only a general 
of brigade. His discipline was all iron. Those who transgressed, 
those who were found guilty at night were shot in the morning. 
He never spared what the court martial had condemned. There 
was a ghastly dead wall in Monterey, isolated, lonesome, forbidding 
terrible, which had seen many a stalwart form shudder and fall> 
many a young, fresh, dauntless face go down stricken in the hush 
of the morning. The face of this wall, covered all over with warts, 
with excrescences, with scars, had about it a horrible small-pox. 
Where the bullets had plowed it up were the traces of the pustules. 
The splashes of blood left by the slaughter dried there. In the sun- 
light these shone as sinister blushes upon the countenance of that 
stony and inanimate thing, peering out from an inexorable ambush 
— waiting. 

Speaking no word for the American, and setting down naught 
to the credit side of his necessities or his surroundings, those who 
had brought news to Jeanningros of Shelby's operations at Piedras 
Negras had told him as well of the cannon sold as of the arms and 
ammunition. Jeanningros had waited patiently and had replied 
to them: 

" Wait awhile. We must catch them before we hang them." 

While he was waiting to lay hands upon them, Shelby had 
marched to within a mile of the French outposts at Monterey. He 
came as a soldier, and ho meant to do a soldier's work. Pickets were 
thrown forward, the horses were fed, and Governor Reynolds put in 
most excellent French this manner of a note: 

General Jeanningros, Commander at Monterey.— General: I have the 
honor to report that I am within one mile of your fortifications with my 
command. Preferring exile to surrender, I have left my own country to 
seek service in that held by His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Maximilian. 
Shall it be peace or war between us ? If the former, and with your per- 
mission, I shall enter your lines at once, claiming at your hands that courtesy 
due from one soldier to another. If the latter, I propose to attack you 

immediately. Very respectfully, yours, 

Jo. O . Shelby. 

288 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 289 

Improvising a flag of truce, two fearless soldiers, John Tlirail- 
kill and Rainy McKinney, bore it boldly into the public square at 
Monterey. This flag was an apparition. The long roll was beaten, 
the garrison stood to their arms, mounted orderlies galloped hither 
and thither, and Jeanningros himself, used all his life to surprises, 
was attracted by the soldierly daring of the deed. He received the 
message and answered it favorably, remarking to Thrailkill, as he 
handed him the reply: 

" Tell your general to march in immediately. He is the only 
soldier that has yet come out of Yankeedom." 

Jeanningros' reception was as frank and open as his speech. 
That night, after assigning quarters to the men, he gave a banquet 
to the officers. Among those present were General Magruder, Ex- 
Senator Trusten Polk, Ex-Governor Thomas C. Reynolds, General 
T. C. Hindman, General E. Kirby Smith, General John B. Clark, 
General Shelby, and many others fond of talk, wine and adventure. 
Jeanningros was a superb host. His conversation never tired of the 
Crimea, of Napoleon III.'s coup d'etat, of the Italian campaign, of 
the march to Pekin, of Algeria, of all the great soldiers he had 
known, and of all the great campaigns he had participated in. Tlie 
civil war in America was discussed in all of its vivid and soiriber 
lights, and no little discussion carried on as to the probable effect 
peace would have upon Maximilian's occupation of Mexico. Jean- 
ningros was emphatic in all of his declarations. In reply to a ques- 
tion asked by Shelby concerning the statesmanship of the Mexican 
Emperor, the French General replied : 

"Ah! the Austrian: you should see him to understand him. 
More of a scholar than a king, good at botany, a poet on occasions, 
a traveler who gathers curiosities and writes books, a saint over his 
wine and a sinner among his cigars, in love with his wife, believing 
more in manifest destiny than drilled battalions, good Span-iard in 
all but deceit and treachery, honest, earnest, tender-hearted and 
sincere, his faith is too strong in the liars who surround him, and his 
soul is too pure for the deeds that must be done. He can not kill as 
we Frenchmen do. He knows nothing of diplomacy. In a nation 
of thieves and cut-throats, he goes devoutly to mass, endows hos- 
pitals, laughs a good man's laugh at the praises of the blanketed 
rabble, says his prayers and sleeps the sleep of the gentleman and 
the prince. Bah! his days are numbered; nor can all the power of 
France keep his crown upon his head, if, indeed, it can keep that 
head upon his shoulders." 

The blunt soldier checked himself suddenly. The man had 
spoken over his wine; the courtier never speaks. 

" Has he the confidence of Bazaine?" asked General Clark. 

Jeanningros gave one of those untranslatable shrugs which are a 
volume, and drained his goblet before replying. 



290 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

"Tiie Marshal, you mean. Oli! the Marshal keeps his own 
secrets. Besides I have not seen the Marshal since coming north- 
ward. Do you go further, General Clark ?" 

The diplomatist had met the diplomatist. Both smiled; neither 
referred to the subject again. 

Daylight shone in through the closed shutters before the party 
separated — the Americans to sleep, the Frenchman to sign a death 
warrant. 

A young lieutenant of the Foreign Legion, crazed by that most 
damnable of drinks, absinthe, had deserted from outpost duty in a 
moment of temporary insanity. For three days he wandered about, 
taking no note of men or things, helpless and imbecile. On the 
morning of the fourth day his reason was given back to him. None 
knew better than himself the nature of the precipice upon which he 
stood. Before him lay the Rio Grande, the succor beyond an 
asjdum, safety; behind him the court martial, the sentence, the hor- 
rible wall, splashed breast high with blood, the platoon, the leveled 
muskets — death. He never faltered. Returning to the outpost at 
which he had been stationed, he saluted its officer and said: 

"Here I am." 

' ' Indeed. And who are you? " 

" A deserter." 

" Ah! but Jeanningros shoots deserters. Why did you not keep 
on, since you had started? " 

" No matter. I am a Frenchman and I know how to die." 

They brought him in while Jeanningros was drinking his gener- 
ous wine, and holding high revelrywilh his guests. When the 
morning came he was tried. No matter for anything the poor young 
soldier could say, and he said but little. At sunrise upon the next 
morning he was to die. 

When Jeanningros awoke late in the afternoon there was a note 
for him. Its contents, in substance, was as fx)llows: 

" I do not ask for my life — only for the means of disposing of it. 
I have an old mother in France who gave me to the country, and wlio 
blessed me as she said good-bye. Under the law. General, if I am 
shot, my property goes to the State; if I shoot myself my mother 
gets it. It is a little thing a soldier asks of his General, who has 
medals, and honors, and, maybe, a mother, too — but for the sake of 
the uniform I wore at Solferino, is it asking more than you can grant 
when I ask for a revolver and a bottle of brandy? " 

Through his sleepy, half-shut eyes Jeanningros read the message 
to the end. When he had finished he called an aide. 

" Take to the commandant of the prison this order." 

The order was for the pistol and the brandy. 

That afternoon and night the young Lieutenant wrote, and drank, 
and made his peace with all the world. What laid beyond he knew 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 291 

not, nor any man born of woman. There was a little light in the 
east and a little brandy in the bottle. But the letters had all been 
written, and the poor woman in France would get her just due 
after all. 

Turn out the guard I 

For what end ? No need of soldiers there — rather the coffin, 
the prayer of the priest, the grave that God blessed though by man 
decreed unhallowed. French to the last, the Lieutenant had waited 
for the daylight, had finished his bottle, and had scattered his 
brains over the cold walls of his desolate prison, Jeanningros 
heard the particulars duly related, and had dismissed the Adjutant 
with an epigram : 

'* Clever fellow. He was entitled to two bottles instead of one." 

Such is French discipline. All crimes but one may be con- 
doned — desertion never. 

Preceding Shelby's arrival in Monterey, there had come also 
Col. Francois Achille Dupin, a Frenchman who was known as 
"The Tiger of the Tropics." What he did would fill a volume. 
Recorded here, no reader would believe it — no Christian would 
imagine such warfare possible. He was pastsixty, tall as Tecumseh, 
straight as a rapier, with a seat in the saddle like an English guards- 
man, and a waist like a woman. For deeds of desperate daring he 
had received more decorations than could be displayed upon the 
right breast of his uniform. His hair and beard, snowy white, 
contrasted strangely with a stern, set face that had been bronzed by 
the sun and the wind of fifty campaigns. 

In the Chinese expedition this man had led the assault upon the 
Emperor's palace, wherein no defender escaped the bayonet and no 
woman the grasp of the brutal soldiery. Sack and pillage and 
murder and crimes without a name all were there, and when the 
fierce carnage was done, Dupin, staggering under the weight of 
rubies and pearls and diamonds, was a disgraced man. The inex- 
orable jaws of a French court martial closed down upon him, and 
he was dismissed from service. It was on the trial that he paro- 
died the speech of Warren Hastings and declared: 

" When I saw mountains of gold and precious stones piled up 
around me, and when I think of the paltry handfuls taken away, 
by G — d, Mr. President, I am astonished at my own moderation." 

As they stripped his decorations and his ribbons from his breast 
he drew himself up with a touching and graceful air, and said to 
the officer, saluting: 

" They have left me nothing but my scars." 

Such a man, however, tiger and butcher as he was, had need of 
the army and the army had need of him. The Emperor gave him 
back his rank, his orders, his decorations, and gave him as well his 
exile into Mexico, 



293 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

Maximilian refused him ; Bazaine found work for his sword. 
Even then that fatal quarrel was in its beginning which, later, 
was to leave a kingdom defenseless, and an Emperor without an 
arsenal or a siege-gun. Dupin was ordered to recruit a regiment 
of Contre Guerillas, that is to say a regiment of Free Companions 
who were to be superbly armed and mounted, and who were to fol- 
low the Mexican guerrillas through copse and chapparal, through 
lowland and lagoon, sparing no man upon whom hands were laid, 
fighting all men who had arms in their hands, and who could be 
found or brought to bay. 

Murder with Dupin was a fine art. Mistress or maid he had 
none. That cold, brown face, classic a little in its outlines, and 
retaining yet a little of its fierce southern beauty, never grew soft 
save when the battle was wild and the wreck of the carnage ghastly 
and thick. On the eve of conflict he had been known to smile. 
When he laughed or sang his men made the sign of the cross. They 
knew death was ready at arm's length, and that in an hour he would 
put his sickle in amid the rows and reap savagely a fresh harvest of 
simple yet offending Mexicans. Of all things left to him from the 
sack of that Pekin palace, one thing alone remained, typical of the 
tiger thirst that old age, nor disgrace, nor wounds, nor rough foreign 
service, nor anything human, had power potent enough to quench 
or assuage. Victor Hugo, in his "Toilers of the Sea," has woven it 
into the story after this fashion, looking straight, perhaps, into the 
eyes of the cruel soldier who, in all his life, has never listened to 
prayer or priest: 

"A piece of silk stolen during the last war from the palace of 
the Emperor of China represented a shark eating a crocodile, 
who is eating a serpent, who is devouring an eagle, who is preying 
on a swallow, who is in his turn eating a caterpillar. All nature 
which is under our observation is thus alternately devouring and 
devoured. They prey, prey on each other." 

Dupin preyed upon his species. He rarely killed outright. He 
had a theory, often put into practice, which was diabolical. 

" When you kill a Mexican," he would say, "that is the end of 
him. When you cut off an arm or a leg, that throws him upon the 
charity of his friends, and then two or three must support him. 
Those who make corn can not make soldiers It is economy to 
amputate." 

Hundreds thus passed under the hands of his surgeons. His 
maimed and mutilated were in every town from Mier to Monterey. 
On occasions when the march had been pleasant and the wine gen- 
erous, he would permit chloroform for the operation. Otherwise 
not. It distressed him for a victim to die beneath the knife. 

" You bunglers endanger my theory," he would cry out to his 
surgeons. " Why can't you cut without killing?" 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 293 

The "Tiger of the Tropics " also had his playful moods. He 
would stretch himself in the sun, overpower one with gentleness 
and attention, say soft things in whispers, quote poetry on occasions, 
make of himself an elegant host, serve the wine, laugh low and 
lightsomely, wake up all of a sudden a demon, and — kill. 

One instance of this is yet a terrible memory in Monterey. 

An extremely wealthy and influential Mexican, Don Vincente 
Ibarra, was at home upon his hacienda one day about noon as Dupin 
marched by. Perhaps this man was a Liberal ; certainly he sym- 
pathized with Juarez and had done much for the cause in the shape 
of recruiting and resistance to the predatory bands of Imperialists. 
As yet, however, he had taken up no arms, and had paid his pro- 
portion of the taxes levied upon him by Jeanningros. 

Dupiu was at dinner when his scouts brought Ibarra into camp. 
In front of the tent was a large tree in full leaf, whose spreading 
branches made an extensive and most agreeable shade. Under this 
the Frenchman had a camp-stool placed for the comfort of the 
Mexican. 

"Be seated," he said to him in a voice no harsherthan the wind 
among the leaves overhead. "And, waiter, lay another plate for 
my friend." 

The meal was a delightful one. Dupin talked as a subject who 
had a prince for his guest, and as a lover who had a woman for his 
listener. In the intervals of the conversation he served the wine. 
Ibarra was delighted. His suspicious Spanish heart relaxed the 
tension of its grim defense, and he even stroked the tiger's velvet 
skin, who closed his sleepy eyes and purred under the caress. 

When the wine was at its full cigars were handed. Behind the 
white cloud of the smoke, Dupin's face darkened. Suddenly he 
spoke to Ibarra, pointing up to the tree: 

"What a fine shade it makes, Senor? Do such trees ever 
bear fruit?" 

"Never, Colonel. What a question." 

"Never? All things are possible with God, why not with a 
Frenchman?" 

"Because a Frenchman believes so little in God, perhaps." 

The face grew darker and darker. 

" Are your affairs prosperous, Senor?" 

" As much so as these times will permit." 

"Very good. You have just five minutes in which to make 
them better. At the end of that time I will hang you on that tree 
so sure as you are a Mexican. What ho! Captain Jacan, turn out 
the guard!" 

Ibarra's deep olive face grew ghastly white, and he fell upon 
his knees. No prayers, no agonizing entreaty, no despairing sup- 
plication wrung from a strong man in bis agony availed him aught. 



294 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

At the appointed time liis rigid frame swung between heaven and 
earth, another victim to the mood of one who never knew an hour 
of penitence or mercy. The tree had borne fruit. 

And so tliis manner of a man — :this white-haired Dupin — decor 
ated, known to two continents as the "Tiger of the Tropics," who 
kept four picked Chasseurs to stand guard about and over him night 
and day, this old-young soldier, with a voice like a school-girl and 
a heart like glacier, came to Monterey and recruited a regiment of 
Contre-Guerrillas, a regiment that feared neither God, man, the 
Mexicans nor the devil. 

Under him as a captain was Charles Ney, the grandson of that 
other Ney who cried out to D'Erlon at Waterloo, " Come and see 
how a marshal of France dies on the field of battle." 

In Captain Ney's company there were two squadrons — a French 
squadron and an American squadron, the last having for its com- 
mander Capt. Frank Moore, of Alabama. Under Moore were one 
hundred splendid Confederate soldiers who, refusing to surrender, 
had sought exile, and had stranded upon that inevitable lee shore 
called necessity. Between the Scylla of short rations and the 
Charybdis of empty pockets, the only channel possible was the 
open sea. So into it sailed John C. Moore, Armistead, Williams and 
the rest of that American squadron which was to become famous 
from Matamoras to Matehuala. 

This much by the way of preface has been deemed necessary in 
order that an accurate narrative may be made of the murder of 
Gen. M. M. Parsons, of Jefferson City, his brother-in-law. Colonel 
Standish, of the same place, the Hon. M. D. Courow, of Caldwell 
county, and three gallant young Irishmen, James Mooney, Patrick 
Laugdou, and Michael Monarthy . Ruthlessly butchered in a foreign 
country, they yet had avengers. When the tale was told to Colonel 
Dupin, by John Moore, he listened as an Indian in ambush might 
to the heavy tread of some unwary and approaching trapper. After 
the story had been finished he asked, abruptly: 

"What would you Americans have." 

" Permission," said Moore, "to gather up what is left of our 
comrades and bury what is left." 

"And strike a good, fair blow in return? " 

" Maybe so, Colonel." 

" Then marche at daylight with your squadron. Let me hear 
when you return that not one stone upon another of the robber's 
rendezvous has been left." 

Gen. M. M. Parsons had commanded a division of Missouri 
infantry with great credit to himself, and with great honor to the 
State. He was a soldier of remarkable personal beauty, of great 
dash in battle, of unsurpassed horsemanship, and of that graceful 
and natural suavity of manner w^hich endeared him alike to his 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 295 

brother oflScers and to the men over whom he was placed in 
command. His brother-in-law, Colonel Standish, was his chief of 
staff, and a frank, fearless young officer, whom the Missourians 
knew and admired, Capt. Aaron H. Conrow had, before the war, 
represented Caldwell county in the Legislature, and had, during the 
war, been elected to the Confederate Congress. With these three 
men were three brave and faithful young Irish soldiers, James 
Mooney, Patrick Langdon and Michael Monarthy — six in all, who, 
for the crime of being Americans, had to die. 

Following in the rear of Shelby's expedition in the vain hope of 
overtaking it, they reached the neighborhood of Pedras Negras too 
late to cross the Rio Grande there. A strong body of guerrillas had 
moved up into the town and occupied it immediately after Shelby's 
withdrawal. Crossing the river, however, lower down, they had 
entered Mexico in safety, and had won their perilous way to 
Monterey without serious loss or molestation. Not content to go 
further at that time, and wishing to return to Camargo for purposes 
of communication with Texas, they availed themselves of the 
protection of a train of supply wagons sent by Jeanningros, heavily 
guarded by Imperial Mexican soldiers, to Matamoras. Jeanningros 
gave them safe conduct as far as possible, and some good advice as 
well, which advice simply warned them against trusting anything 
whatever to Mexican courage or Mexican faith. 

The wagon train and its escort advanced well on their way to 
Matamoras — well enough at least to be beyond the range of French 
succor should the worst come to the worst. But on the evening of the 
fourth day, in a narrow defile at the crossing of an exceedingly rapid 
and dangerous stream, the escort was furiously assailed by a large 
body of Juaristas, checked at once, and finally driven back. General 
Parsons and his party retreated with the rest until the night's camp 
was reached, when a little council of war was called by the Ameri- 
cans. Conrow and Standish were in favor of abandoning the trip 
for the present, especially as the whole country was aroused and in 
waiting for the train, and more especially as the guerrillas, attracted 
by the scent of plunder, were swarming upon the roads and in am- 
bush by every pass and beside the fords of every stream. General 
Parsons overruled them, and determined to make the venture as soon 
as the moon arose, in the direction of Camargo. 

None took issue with him further. Accustomed to exact obedi- 
ence, much of the old soldierly spirit was still in existence, and so 
they followed him blindly and with alacrity. At daylight the next 
morning the entire party was captured. Believing, however, that 
the Americans were but the advance of a larger and more formid- 
able party, the Mexicans neither dismounted nor disarmed them. 
While at breakfast, and at the word of command from General Par- 
soos, the whole six galloped off under a fierce fire of musketry, 



296 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

unhurt, baffling all pursuit, and gaining some good hours' advantage 
over their captors. It availed them nothing, however. About noon 
of the second day they were again captured, this time falling into the 
hands of Figueroa, a robber chief as notorious among the Mexicans 
as Dupin was among the French. 

Short shrift came afterward. Colonel Standish was shot first. 
When told of the fate intended for him, he bade good-bye to his 
comrades, knelt a few moments in silent prayer, and then stood up 
firmly, facing his murderers. At the discharge of the musketry 
platoon, he was dead before he touched the ground. Two bullets 
pierced his generous and dauntless heart. 

Capt. Aaron H. Conrow died next. He expected no mercy, 
and he made no plea for life. A request to be permitted to write a 
a few lines to his wife was denied him, Figueroa savagely ordering 
the execution to proceed. The firing party shortened the distance 
between it and their victim, placing him but three feet away from 
the muzzles of their muskets. Like Standish he refused to have his 
eyes bandaged. Knowing but few words of Spanish, he called 
out in his brave, quick fashion, and in his own language, '*Fire!" 
and the death he got was certain and instantaneous. He fell within 
a few paces of his comrade, dead like him before he touched the 
ground. 

The last moments of the three young Irish soldiers had now come. 
They had seen the stern killing of Standish and Conrow, and they 
neither trembled nor turned pale. It can do no good to ask what 
thoughts were theirs, or if from over the waves of the wide Atlantic 
some visions came that were strangely and sadly out of place in front 
of the chapparal and the sandaled Mexicans. Monarthy asked for a 
priest and received one. He was a kind-hearted, ignorant Indian, 
who would have saved them if he could, but safe from the bloody 
hands of Figueroa no foreigner had ever yet come. The three men 
confessed and received such consolation as the living could give to 
men as good as dead. Then they joined hands and spoke some earn- 
est words together for the brief space permitted them. Langdon, 
the youngest, was only twenty-two. A resident of Mobile when the 
war commenced, he had volunteered in a battery, had been captured 
at Vicksburg, and had, later, joined Pindall's battalion of sharp- 
shooters in Parsons' Division. He had a face like a young girl's, 
it was so fair and fresh. All who knew him loved him. In all the 
Confederate army there was neither braver nor better soldier. 
Mooney was a man of fifty-five, with an iron frame and with a gaunt 
scarred, rugged face that was yet kindly and attractive. He took 
Langdon in his arms and kissed him twice, once on each cheek, 
shook hands with Monarthy, and opened his breast. The close, 
deadly fire was received standing and with eyes wide open. Lang- 
don died without a struggle, Mooney groaned twice and tried to 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 297 

speak. Death finished the sentence ere it was commenced. Monarthy 
required the coup de grace. A soldier went close to him, rested the 
muzzle of his musket against his head and fired. He was very quiet 
then; the murder was done; five horrible corpses lay in a pool of 
blood; the shadows deepened; and the cruel eyes of Figueroa 
roamed, as the eyes of a tiger, from the ghastly faces of the dead to 
the stern, set face of the living. General Parsons felt that for him, 
too, the supreme moment had come at last. 

Left in that terrible period alone, none this side eternity will ever 
know what he suffered and endured. Waiting patiently for his 
sentence, a respite was granted. Some visions of ransom musthave 
crossed Figueroa's mind. Clad in the showy and attractive uniform 
of a Confederate major-general, having the golden stars of his rank 
upon his collar, magnificently mounted, and being withal a remark- 
ably handsome and commanding-looking soldier himself, it was for 
a time at least thought best to hold him a prisoner. His horse even 
was given back to him, and for some miles further toward Mata- 
moras he was permitted to ride with those who had captured him- 
The Captain of the guard immediately in charge of his person had 
also a very fine horse, whose speed he was continually boasting of. 
Fortunately this officer spoke English, thus permitting General 
Parsons to converse with him. Much bantering was had concerning 
the speed of the two horses, A race was at length proposed. The 
two men started off at a furious gallop, the American steadily gain- 
ing upon the Mexican. Finding himself in danger of being dis- 
tanced, the Captain drew up and ordered his competitor in the race 
to halt. Unheeding the command. General Parsons dashed on with 
the utmost speed, escaping the shots from the revolver of the Mexi- 
can, and eluding entirely Figueroa and his command. Although in 
a country filled with treacherous and blood-thirsty savages, and 
ignorant of the roads and the language, General Parsons might have 
reduced the chances against him in the proportion of ten to one, 
had he concealed himself in some neighboring chapparal and waited 
until the night fell. He did not do this, but continued his flight 
rapidly down the broad highway which ran directly from Monterey 
to Matamoras. There could be but one result. A large scouting 
party of Figueroa's forces returning to the headquarters of their 
chief met him before he had ridden ten miles, again took him 
prisoner, and again delivered him into the hands of the ferocious 
bandit. 

Death followed almost instantly. None who witnessed the deed 
have ever told how he died, but three days afterward his body was 
found stripped by the wayside, literally shot to pieces. Some Mexi- 
cans then buried it, marking the unhallowed spot with a cross. 
Afterward Figueroa, dressed in the full uniform of General Parsons, 
was in occupation of Cam?.>go, while the same Colonel Johnson, 



298 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

who had followed Shelby southwai'dly from San Antonio, held the 
opposite shore of the Rio Grande on the American side. Figueroa, 
gloating over the savageness of the deed, and imagining, in his stolid 
Indian cunning, that the Federal officers would pay handsomely for 
the spoils of the murdered Confederate, proffered to deliver to him 
General Parsons' coat, pistols and private papers for a certain speci- 
fied sum, detailing, at the same time, with revolting accuracy, the 
merciless particulars of the butchery. Horrified at the cool rapacity 
of the robber, and thinking only of General Parsons as an American 
and a brother. Colonel Johnson tried for weeks to entice Figueroa 
across the river, intending to do a righteous vengeance upon him. 
Too wily and too cowardly to be caught, he moved back suddenly 
into the interior, sending a message afterward to Colonel Johnson 
full of taunting and defiance. 

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his own blood be 
shed. Dupin's avengers were on the track, imbued with Dupin's 
spirit, and having over them the stern memory of Dupin's laconic 
orders. Leave not one stone upon another. And why should 
there be habitations when the inhabitants were scattered or killed. 

Las Flores was a flower town, beautiful in name, and beautiful 
m the blue of the skies which bent over it: in the blue of the mount- 
ains which caught the morning and wove for it a gosstimer robe of 
amethyst and pearl; in the song and flow of running water, where 
women sat and sang, and combed their dusky hair; and in the olden, 
immemorial groves, filled with birds that had gold for plumage, and 
sweet seed and sunshine for mating and wooing songs. 

Hither would come Figueroa in the lull of the long marches, and 
in the relaxation of the nights of ambush, and the days of watching 
and starving. Booty and beauty, and singing maidens all were there. 
There red gold would buy right royal kisses, and there feasting and 
minstrelsy told of the pillage done, and the rapine and slaughter 
beyond the sweep of the mountains that had cut the sky line. 

God help all of them who tarried till the American squadron 
charged into the town, one hundred rank and file, Frank Moore lead- 
ing — all who had beard upon their faces or guns within their hands. 
A trusty guide had made the morning a surprise. It was not yet 
daylight. Some white mist, like a corpse abandoning a bier, was 
creeping up from the lowlands. The music and the lights had died 
out in the streets. The east, not yet awakened, had on its face the 
placid pallor of sleep. What birds flew were weary of wing and 
voiceless in the sober hush of dreamless nature. 

Leave not one stone upon another. And the faces of the Ameri- 
cans were set as a flint and the massacre began. Never were six 
men so terribly avenged. It need not be told what flames were 
there, what harsh and gutteral oaths, what tawny faces blanched 
and grew white, what cries and vollies and shrieks, and deaths 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 299 

that made no moan arose on the morning, and scared the mist from 
the water, the paradise birds from their bowers amid the limes and 
the orange trees. It was over at last. Call the roll and gather up 
the corpses. Fifteen Americans dead, eleven wounded, and so 
many Mexicans that you could not count them. Las Flores, the 
City of the Flowers, had become to be Las Cruces, the City of the 
Crosses. 

When the tale was told to Dupin, he rubbed his brown bare 
hands and lent his arm on his subaltern's shoulder. 

" Tell me about it again," he ordered. 

The tale was told. 

'* Oh! brave Americans!" he shouted. "Americans after my 
own heart. You shall be saluted with sloping standards and un- 
covered heads." 

The bugles rang out "to horse," the regiment got under arms, 
the American squadron passed in review along the ranks, the flags 
were lowered and inclined, officers and men uncovered as the files 
marched down the lines; there were greetings and rejoicings, and 
from the already lengthened life of the white-haired commander 
five good years of toil and exposure had been taken. For a week 
thereafter he was seen to smile and to be glad. After that the old 
wild work commenced again. 



CHAPTER X. 

In Monterey, at the time of Shelby's arrival, there was one man 
wlio hud figured somewhat extensively in a role new to most 
Americans. This man was the Hon. ^\illiam M. Gwin, ex-United 
States Senator and ex Governor of California. He had been to 
France and just returned. Accomplished in all of the social graces; 
an aristocrat born and a bit of an Imperialist as well; full of wise 
words and sage reflections; graceful in his conversation and charm- 
ing over his wine; having the political history of his country at hear 
as a young Catholic does his catechism; fond of the pomp and 
the paraphernalia of royalty; nothing of a soldier, but much of a 
diplomatist; a stranger to reverence and a cosmopolitan in religion, 
he was a right proper man to hold court in Sonora, the Mexican 
province whose affairs he was to administer upon as a Duke. 
Napoleon had granted him letters patent for this, and for this he 
had ennobled him. It is nowhere recorded that he took possession 
of his province. Granted an audience by Maximilian he laid his 
plans before him and asked for a prompt installment into the admin- 
istration of the dukedom. It was refused peremptorily. At the 
mercy of Bazaine, and having no soldiers worthy the name other 
than French soldiers, the Mexican Emperor had weighty reasons 
besides private ones for such refusal. It was not time for the 
coquetries of empire before that empire had an army, a bank 
account, and a clean bill of health. Gwin became indignant, 
Bazaine became amused, and Maximilian became disgusted. In the 
end the Duke left the country and the guerrillas seized upon the 
dukedom. When Shelby reached Monterey, ex-Governor Gwin was 
outward bound for Matamoras, reaching the United States later only 
to be imprisoned in Fort Jackson, below New Orleans, for several 
long and weary months. The royal sufferer had most excellent 
company — although Democratic, and therefore unsympathetic. 
General John B. Clark, returning about the same time, was pounced 
upon and duly incarcerated. Gwin attempted to convert him to 
imperialism, but it ended by Clark bringing Gwin back to Democ- 
racy. And a noble Missourian was " Old" General Clark, as the 
soldiers loved to call him. Lame from a wound received while 
leading his brigade gallantly into action at Wilson's Creek, penniless 
in a land for whose sake he had given up gladly a magnificent 
fortune, proscribed of the Government, a prisoner without a country, 
an exile who was not permitted to return in peace, dogmatic and 
defiant to the last, he went into Fort Jackson a rebel, remained a 
rebel there, came away a rebel, and a rebel he will continue to be as 

300 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 301 

long as life permits him to use the rough Anglo Saxon oaths which 
go to make up his rebel vocabulary. On the march into Mexico he 
had renewed his youth. In the night watches he told tales of his 
boyhood, and by the camp fires he replenished anew the fires of his 
memory. Hence all the anecdotes that amused — all the reminis- 
cences which delighted. At the crossing of the Salinas river he fell 
in beside General Shelby, a musket in his hand, and the old ardorof 
battle upon his stern and weather-beaten face. 

" Where would you go? " asked Shelby. 

"As far as you go, my young man." 

"Not this day, my old friend, if I can help it. There are 
younger and less valuable men who shall take this risk alone. Get out 
of the ranks, General. The column can not advance unless you do." 

Forced against his will to retire, he was mad for a week, and 
only recovered his amiability after being permitted to engage in the 
night encounter at the Pass of the Palms. 

Before marching northward from Monterey, Shelby sought one 
last interview with General Jeanningros. It was courteously 
accorded. General Preston, who had gone forward from Texas to 
open negotiations with Maximilian, and who had reached ]\Iexico 
City in safety, had not yet reported the condition of his surround- 
ings. It was Shelby's desire to take military service in the Empire 
since his men had refused to become the followers of Juarez at 
Piedras Negras. Knowing that a corps of fifty thousand Ameri- 
cans could be recruited in a few months after a base of operations 
had once been established, he sought the advice of General Jean- 
ningros to this end, meaning to deal frankly with him, and to dis- 
cuss fully his plans and purposes. 

Jeanningros had grown gray in the service. He acknowledged 
but one standard of perfection — success. Never mind the means, 
so only the end was glory and France. The camps had made him 
cruel; the barracks had given to this cruelty a kind of fascinating 
rhetoric. Sometimes he dealt in parables. One of these told more 
of the paymaster than the zouave, more of Minister Rouher than 
Marshal McMahon. He would say: 

"Napoleon and Maximilian have formed a partnership. To get 
it well agoing much money has been spent. Some bargains have 
been bad, and some vessels have been lost. There is a crisis at 
hand. More capital is needed to save what has already been 
invested, and for one, rather than lose the millions swallowed up 
yesterday, I would put in as many more millions to-day. It is 
economy to hold on." 

Shelby went straight at his work : 

" I do not know what you think of things here, General, nor of 
the outcome the future has in store for the Empire, but one thing is 
certain, I shall tell you the plain truth. The Federal Government 



gC2 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

has no lore for your French occupation of Mexico. If diplomacy 
can't get you out, infantry divisions will. I left a large army con- 
centrating upon the banks of the Rio Grande, and all the faces of all 
the men were looking straight forward into Mexico, Will France 
fight? For one, I hope so; but it seems to me that if your Emperor 
had meant to be serious in this thing, his plan should have been to 
have formed an alliance long ago, offensive and defensive, with 
Jefferson Davis. This, in the event of success, would have guar- 
anteed you the whole country, and obliged you as well to have 
opened the ports of Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans. Better 
battles could have been fought on the Potomac than on the Rio 
Grande; surer results would have followed from a French landing 
at Mobile than at Tampico or Vera Cruz. You have waited too long. 
Flushed with a triumphant termination of the war, American 
diplomacy now means the Monroe doctrine, pure and simple, with 
a little of Yankee brutality and braggadocio thrown in. Give me a 
port as a basis of operations, and I can organize an American force 
capable of keeping Maximilian upon his throne. If left discretionary 
with me, that port shall be either Guaymas or Mazatlan. The Cali- 
fornianslove adventure, and many leaders among them have already 
sent messengers to me with overtures. My agent at the capital has 
not yet reported, and, consequently, I am uninformed as to the 
wishes of the Emperor; but one thing is certain, the French can not 
remain, and he can not rule over Mexicans with Mexicans. With- 
out foreign aid he is lost. You know Bazaine better than I do, and 
so what would Bazaine say to all this?" 

Jeanningros heard him patiently to the end, answering Shelby as 
frankly as he had been addressed : 

"There will be no war between France and the United States, 
and of this you may rest assured. I can not answer for Marshal 
Bazaine, nor for his wishes and intentions. There is scant love, 
however, between his excellency and Maximilian, because one is a 
scholar and the other is a soldier ; but I do not think the Marshal 
would be averse to the employment of American soldiers in the 
service of the Empire. You have my full permission to march to 
the Pacific, and to take such other steps as will seem best to you in 
the matter of which you have just spoken. The day is not far dis- 
tant when every French soldier in Mexico will be withdrawn, 
although this would not necessarily destroy the Empire. Who will 
take their places ? Mexicans. Bah ! beggars ruling over beggars, 
cut-throats lying in wait for cut-throats, traitors on the inside mak- 
ing signs for traitors on the outside to come in. Not thus are 
governments upheld and administered. Healthy blood must be 
poured through every effete and corrupted vein of this effete and 
corrupted nation ere the Austrian can sleep a good man's sleep in 
his palace of Chepultepec." 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR. 803 

The interview ended, and Shelby marched northward to Sal- 
tillo. The first camp beyond was upon the battle field of Buena 
Vista. It was sunset when the column reached the memorable and 
historic field. A gentle rain in the morning had washed the grass 
until it shone, had washed the trees until the leaves glistened and 
smelt of perfume. After the bivouac was made, silence and twi- 
light, as twin ghosts, crept up the glade together. Nest spoke unto 
nest in the gloaming, and bade good-night as the moon arose. It was 
an harvest moon, white and splended and large as a tent-leafed 
palm. Away over to the left a mountain arose, where the mist 
gathered and hung dependent as the locks of a giant. The left of 
the American army had rested there. In its shadows had McKee 
fallen, and there had Hardin died, and there had the lance's point 
found Yell's dauntless heart, and there had the young Clay yielded 
up his precious life in its stainless and its spotless prime. The 
great ravine still cut the level plain asunder. Rank mesquite grew 
all along the crest of the deadly hill where the MississippiaES 
formed, and where, black-lipped and waiting, Bragg's battery 
crouched in ambush at its feet. Shining as a satin band, the broad 
highway lay white under the moonlight toward Saltillo— the high- 
way to gain which Santa Anna dashed his desperate army iu vain 
—the highway which held the rear and the life and the fame of the 
Northern handful. 

Gsneral Hindman, a soldier in the regimeut of Col. Jefferson 
Davis, explored the field under the moon and the stars, having at 
his back a regiment of younger Americans who, although the actor.s 
in a direr and more dreadful war, yet clung on to their earliest 
superstitions and their spring time faith in the glory and the 
carnage of Buena Vista. He made the camp a long to be remem- 
bered one. Here a squadron charged; there a Lancer regiment, 
gaily caparisoned in scarlet and gold, crept onward and onward 
until the battery's dun smoke broke as a wave over pennant and 
plume; here the grim Northern lines reeled and rallied; there the 
sandaled Mexicans, rent into fragments, swarmed into the jaws of 
the ravine, crouching low as the hot temptest of grape and canister 
rushed over and beyond them; yonder, where the rank grass is 
greenest and freshest, the uncoffined dead were buried; and every- 
where upon theright and the left, the little mounds arose, guarding 
for evermore the sacred dust of the stranger slain. 

The midnight came, and the harvest moon, as a spectral boat, 
was floating away to the west in a tide of silver and gold. The 
battle-field lay under the great, calm face of the sky— a sepulchre. 
Looking out from his bivouac who knows what visions came to the 
musing soldier, as grave after grave gave up its dead, and as spirit 
after spirit put on its uniform and its martial array. Pale squadrons 
galloped again through the gloom of the powder-pall; again the 



304 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO : 

deep roar of the artillery leut its mighty voice to swell the thunder 
of the gathering battle; again the rival flags rose and fell in the 
" hot, lit foreground of the fight;" again the Lancers charged; 
piercing and sweet and wildly shrill, the bugles again called out 
for victory; and again from out the jaws of the cavernous ravine a 
tawny tide emerged, clutching fiercely at the priceless road, and 
falliug there in giant windrows as the summer hay when the scythe 
of the reapers takes the grass that is rankest. 

The moon went down. The mirage disappeard, and only the 
silent and deserted battle-field lay out under the stars, its low trees 
waving in the night wind, and its droning katydids sighing in the 
grasses above the graves. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Fkom Parras there was a broad, national highway running 
directly to Sonora, and so Shelby marched from Saltillo to Parras, 
intending to rest there a few days and then continue on to the 
Pacific, keeping steadily in view the advice and the information 
given him by General Jeanningros. 

His entrance into the city was stormy, and his reception there 
had neither sunlight nor temperate air about it. Indeed, none of 
the Parras winds blew him good. When within two days' march 
of Parras a sudden rain storm came out of the sky, literally inun- 
dating the ground of the bivouac. The watch fires were all put 
out. Sleep was banished, and in the noisy jubilation of the wind a 
guerrilla band stole down upon the camp. Dick Collins, James 
Kirtley, George Winship and James Meadow were on picquet duty 
at the mouth of a canyon on the north. They were peerless sol- 
diers and they knew how to keep their powder dry. The unseen 
moon had gone down, and the rain and the wind warred with each 
other. Some black objects rose up between the eyes of Winship on 
the outermost post, and the murky clouds, yet a little light, above 
the darker jaws of the canyon. Weather proof, Winship spoke to 
Collins : 

"There is game afoot. No peaceful thing travels on such a 
devil's night as this," 

The four men gathered closer together, watching. Of a sudden 
a tawny and straggling kind of flame leaped out from the canyon 
and showed the faces of the Americans, one to another. They 
were all resolute and determined. They told how the dauntless 
four meant to stand there and fight there and die there, if needs be, 
until the sleeping camp could get well upon its feet. Sheltered a 
little by the darkness, and more by the rocks before and around 
them, they held desperately on, four men fighting two hundred. 
The strange combat waxed hotter and closer. Under the murky 
night the guerrillas crawled ever nearer and nearer. Standing 
closely together the Americans fired at the flashes of the Mexican 
muskets. As yet they had not resorted to their revolvers. Trained 
to perfection in the use of Sharp's carbines, their guns seemed 
always loaded. Collins spoke first in his quaint, characteristic 
way: 

" Boys, it's hot despite the rain," 

" It will be hotter," answered Winship. 

Then the wild work commenced again. This time they could 
not load their carbines. The revolvers had taken part in the melee. 

305 



306 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Kirtley was hit badly iu the left arm, Collins was bleeding from an 
ugly wound in the right shoulder, Meadow and Wiusliip each were 
struck slightly, and the guerrillas were ready for the death grapple. 
Neither thought of giving one inch of ground. The wind blew 
furiously and the rain poured down. At the moment when the final 
rush had come, the piercing notes of Shelby's bugle were heard, and 
clearer and nearer and deadlier the great shout of an oncoming host, 
leaping swiftly forward to the rescue. Past the four men on guard, 
Shelby leading, the tide poured into the pass. What happened 
there the daylight revealed. It was sure enough and ghastly enough 
to satisfy all, and better for some if the sunlight bad never 
uncovered to kindred eyes the rigid corpses lying stark and stiff 
where they had fallen. 

All at once a furious fire of musketry was heard in the rear and 
iu amid the tethered horses. Again the bugle's notes were heard, 
and again Shelby's rallying voice rang out: 

' * Countermarch for your lives. Make haste ! — make haste ! — the 
very clouds are raining Mexicans to-night." 

It was a quarter of a mile to the camp. The swiftest men got 
there first. Sure enough the attack had been a most formidable 
one. Slayback and Cundiff held the post in the rear and were 
fighting desperately. On foot, in the darkness, and attacked by 
four hundred guerrillas well acquainted with the whole country, 
they had yet neither been surprised nor driven back. Woe unto 
the horses if they had, and horses were as precious gold. Attracted 
only by the firing, and waiting for no orders, there hadrushed to the 
rearward post McDougall, Fell, Dorsey, Macey, RasWood, Charley 
Jones, Vines, Armistead and Elliott. Some aroused from their 
blankets, were hatless and bootless. Inglehardtsnatched a lighted 
torch from a sheltered fire and attempted to light the way. The 
rain put it out. Henry Chiles, having his family to protect, knew, 
however, by instinct that the rear was in danger, and pressed for- 
ward with Jim Wood and the Berry brothers. Langhorne, from 
the left, bore down with John and Martin Kritzer, where he had 
been all night with the herd, keeping vigilant watch. In the im- 
penetrable darkness the men mistook each other. Moreland fired 
upon George Hall and shot away the collar of his overcoat. Hall 
recognized his voice and made himself known to him. Jake Con- 
nor, with the full swell and compass of his magnificcntvoice, struck 
up, " Tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," until, guided by the 
music of the song, the detached parties came together in the gloom 
and pressed on rapidly to the rear. 

It was time. Slayback and Cundiff, having only a detachment 
of twelve men, nine of whom were killed or wounded, were half 
surrounded. They, too, had refused to fall back. In the rain, in 
the darkness, having no authorized commander, tired on from 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 307 

three sides, ignorant of the number and the positions of their assail- 
ants, they yet charged furiously in a body and drove everything 
before them. When Shelby arrived with reinforcements the combat 
was over. It had been the- most persistent and bloody of the expe- 
dition. Calculating their chances well, the guerrillas had attacked 
simultaneously from front and rear, and fought with a tenacity 
unknown before in their history. The horses were the prize, and 
right furiously did they struggle for them. Close, reckless fighting 
alone saved the camp and scattered the desperate robbers in every 
direction among the mountains. 

Colonel Depreuil, with the Fifty-second of the French line, held 
Parras, an extreme outpost on the north — the key, in fact, of the 
position toward Chihuahua and Sonora. Unlike Jeanningros in 
many things, he was, yet a fine soldier, a mostovei bearing and tyran- 
nical man. Gathered together at Parras also, and waiting permis- 
sion to march to Sonora, was Colonel Terry, one of the famous 
principals in the Broderick duel, and a detachment of Texans num- 
bering, probably, twenty -five. Terry's own account of this mem- 
orable duel was all the more interesting because given by one who, 
of all others, knew best the causes and the surroundings which 
rendered it necessary. In substance the following contains the 
main points of the narrative: 

" The political contest preceding the duel was exceptionally and 
bitterly personal. Broderick recognized the code fully, and had 
once before fought and wounded his man. He was cool, brave, 
dangerous and very determined. His influence over his own im- 
mediate followers and friends was more marked and emphatic than 
that exercised by any other man that I have ever known. He 
excelled in organization and attack, and possessed many of the most 
exalted qualities of a successful commander. As an orator he was 
rugged, yet inspired, reminding me somewhat of my own picturings 
of Mirabeau, without the gigantic persistence and intellect of Mira- 
beau. I do not desire to enter into even the details which led to the 
unfortunate meeting, for these have been given again and again 
in as many false and unnatural ways as possible. After the terms 
had all been fully discussed and agreed upon, and the time and 
place of the combat settled, I said confidentially to a friend of mine 
that I did not intend to kill Broderick. This friend seemed 
greatly surprised, and asked me after a few moments' reflection, 
what I really intended to do in the matter. My answer was that I 
simply desired to save my own life, and that I should only disable 
him, 'It is a dangerous game you are playing,' he replied, 'and 
one likely to bring you trouble. Broderick is no trifling antagonist. 
He shoots to kill every time.* When I arrived on the field I had not 
changed my mind, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw murder 
there as plainly as murder was ever depicted, and then I kneio that 



308 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

one of us had to die. I put my life fairly against his own. His 
bearing was magnificent, and his nerve superbly cool. It has been 
asserted that I remarked to my second, while he was measuring the 
ground, that he must take short steps. This is untrue, for the 
ground was measured twice, once by my own second, and once by 
the second of Broderick. They both agreed perfectly. The dis- 
tance was ten paces, and in size neither had the advantage. I felt 
confident of killingjhim, however, but if required to give a reason for 
this belief I could not give either a sensible or an intelligent reason. 
You know the result. He fell at the first fire, shot through the 
neck and mortally wounded. I did not approach him afterward, 
nor were any attempts made at reconciliation. At the hands 
of his friends I received about as large a share of personal abuse as 
usually falls to the lot of a man; at the hands of my friends I had 
no reason to complain of their generous support and confidence. 
When the war commenced I left California as a volunteer in th-e 
Confederate army, and am here to-day, like the rest of you, a pen- 
niless and an adventurous man. What a strange thing is destiny ? I 
sometimes think we can neither mar nor make our fortunes, but 
have to live the life that is ordained for us. The future nobody 
knows. Perhaps it is best to take it as we find it, and bow grace- 
fully when we come face to face with the inevitable." 

Colonel Terry had felt his own sorrows, too, in the desperate 
struggle. One brother had been shot down by his side in Kentucky; 
a dearly loved child had just been buried in a foreign land; penni- 
less and an exile himself, he had neither home, property, a country, 
nor a cause. All that was left to him were his honor and his scars. 

Before Shelby arrived in Paris, Colonel Depreuil had received an 
order from Marshal Bazaine intended entirely for the Americans. 
It was very concise and very much to the point. It commenced by 
declaring that Shelby's advance was but the commencement of an 
irruption of Americans — Yankees, Bazaine called them — who 
intended to overrun Mexico, and to make war alike upon the French 
and upon Maximilian. Their march to Sonora, therefore, was to 
be arrested, and if they refused to return to their own country, they 
were to be ordered to report to him in the City of Mexico. No 
exceptions were to be permitted, and in any event, Sonora was to 
be held as forbidden territory. 

Used to so many disappointments, and so constantly misunder- 
stood and misinterpreted, Shelby felt the last blow less, perhaps, 
than some heavier ones among the first of a long series. He called 
upon Colonel Depreuil, however, for an official confirmation. 

This interview, like the night attack, was a stormy one. The 
Frenchman was drinking and abusive. Uninvited to a seat, Shelby 
took the nearest one at hand. Upon his entrance into the officer's 
reception room,, he had removed his hat. This was an act of polite- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 309 

ness as natural as it was mechanical. Afterward it came near unto 
bloodshed. 

" I have called, Colonel," Shelby began, "for permission to con- 
tinue my march to Sonora." 

"Such permission is impossible. You will turn aside to 
Mexico." 

"May I ask the reason of this sudden resolution? GeneralJean- 
ningros had no information to this effect when I left him the other 
day in Monterey." 

At the mention of Jeanningros' name, Depreuil became furious in 
a moment. It may have been that the subordinate was wanting in 
respect for his superior, or it may have been that he imagined, in 
his drunken way, that Shelby sought to threaten him with higher 
authority. At any rate he roared out: 

" What do I care for your information? Let the devil fly away 
with you and your information. It is the same old game you Amer- 
icans are forever trying to play — robbing to-day and killing to-morrow 
— and plundering, plundering, plundering all the time. You shall 
not go to Sonora, and you shall not stay here; but whatever you do 
you shall obey." 

Shelby's face darkened. He arose as he spoke, put his hat on, and 
walked some paces toward the speaker. His voice was so cold and 
harsh when he answered him, that it sounded strange and unnatural: 

"I am mistaken it seems. I imagined that when an American 
soldier called upon a French soldier, he was at least visiting a gen- 
tleman. One can not always keep his hands clean, and I wash mine 
of you because you are a slanderer and a coward." 

Depreuil laid his hand upon his sword ; Shelby unbottoned the 
flap of his revolver scabbard. A rencontre was imminent. Those 
of Shelby's men who were with him massed themselves in one cor- 
ner, silent and threateniDg. A guard of soldiers in an adjoining 
room fell into line. The hush of expectancy that came over all was 
ominous. A spark would have exploded a magazine. 

Nothing could have surpassed the scornful, insulting gesture of 
Depreuil as, pointing to Shelby's hat, he ordered fiercely: 

"Remove that." 

"Only to beauty and to God," was the stern, calm reply; " to a 
coward, never." 

It seemed for a moment afterward that Depreuil would strike 
him. He looked first at his own guard, then grasped the hilt of his 
sword, and finally with a fierce oath, he broke out: 

"Retire — retire instantly — lest I outrage all hospitality and dis- 
honor you in my own house. You shall pay for this — you shall 
apologize for this." 

Depreuil was no coward. Perhaps there was no braver and more 
impulsive man in the whole French army. The sequel proved this. 



310 SHELBV'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Shelby went calmly from his presence. He talked about various 
things, but never about the difficulty until he found Governor 
Reynolds. 

" Come apart with me a few moments, Governor," he said. 
Reynolds was alone with him for an hour. When he came out 
he went straight to the quarters of Col. Depreuil. It did not take 
long thereafter to arrange the terms of a meeting. Governor Rey- 
nolds was both a diplomatist and a soldier, and so at daylight the 
next morning they were to fight with pistols at ten paces. In this 
the Frenchman was chivalrous, notwithstanding his overbearing 
and insulting conduct at the interview. Shelby's right hand and 
arm had been disabled by a severe wound, and this Depreuil had 
noticed. Indeed, while he was an expert with the sword, Shelby's 
wrist was so stiff that to handle a sword at all would have been 
impossible. Depreuil, therefore, chose the pistol, agreed to the 
distance, talked some brief moments pleasantly with Governor Rey- 
nolds, and went to bed, Shelby, on his part, had even fewer prep- 
arations to make than Depreuil. Face to face with death for four 
long years, he had seen him in so many shapes, and in so many 
places, that this last aspect was one of his least uncertain and terri- 
fying. 

The duel, however, never occurred. That night, about ten 
o'clock, a tremendous clattering of sabres and galloping of horses 
were heard, and some who went out to ascertain the cause returned 
with the information that General Jeanningros, on an inspecting tour 
of the entire northern line of outposts, had arrived in Parras with 
four squadrons of the Chasseurs d'Af rique. It was not long before 
all the details of the interview between Depreuil and Shelby were 
related to him. His quick French instinct divined in a moment 
that other alternative v/aiting for the daylight, and in an instant 
Depreuil was in arrest, the violation of which would have cost him 
his life. Nor did it end with arrest simply. After fully investigat- 
ing the circumstances connected with the whole affair, Jeanningros 
required Depreuil to make a free and frank apology, which he did 
most cordially and sincerely, regrettiog as much as a sober man 
could the disagreeable and overbearing things did when he was drunk. 
How strange a thing is destiny. About one year after this 
Parras difficulty, Depreuil was keeping isolated guard above Quere- 
tero, threatened by heavy bodies of advancing Juaristas, and in 
imminent peril of destruction. Shelby, no longer a soldier now but 
a trader, knew his peril and knew the value of a friendly warning 
given while it was yet time. Taking all risks, and putting to the 
hazard not only his own life, but the lives of forty others, Shelby 
rode one hundred and sixty-two miles in twenty-six hours, saved 
Depreuil, rescued his detachment, and received in a general order 
from Bazaine the thanks of the French army. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BoTn by education and temperament there were but few men 
better fitted to accept the inevitable gracefully than General Shelby. 
It needed not Depreuil's testimony, nor the immediate confirmation 
thereof by Jeanningros, to convince him that Bazaine's order was 
imperative. True enough, he might have marched forth from 
Parras free to choose whatsoever route he pleased, but to become 
en raipport with the Government it was necessary to obey Bazaine. 
So when the good-byes were said, and the column well in motion, it 
was not toward the Pacific that the foremost horsemen rode along. 

As the expedition won well its way into Mexico, many places old 
in local soDg and story, arose, as it were, from the past, and stood 
out, clear-cut and crimson, against the backgroundof a history filled 
to the brim with rapine, and lust, and slaughter. No other land 
under the sun had an awakening go storm begirt, a christening so 
bloody and remorseless. First the Spaniards under Cortez — swart, 
fierce, long/ of broad-sword and limb ; and next the revolution, 
wherein no man died peacefully or under the shade of a roof. 
There was Hidalgo, the ferocious priest— shot. Morelos, with these 
words in his mouth — shot: "Lord, if I have done well. Thou 
knowest it ; if ill, to Thy infinite mercy I commend my soul." 
Leonardo Bravo, scorning to fly — shot. Nicholas Bravo, his son, 
who had offered a thousand captives for his father's life — shot. 
Matamoras — shot. Mina — shot. Guerrera — shot. Then came the 
Republic — bloodier, bitterer, crueller. Victoria, its first president — 
shot. Mexia — shot. Pedraza — shot. Santmanet — shot by General 
Ampudia, who cut off his head, boiled it in oil, and stuck it up on 
a pole to blacken in the sun. Herrera — shot. Paredes — shot. All 
of them shot, these Mexican presidents, except Santa Anna, who 
lost a leg by the French and a country by the Americans. Among 
his game-cocks a^d his mistresses to-day in Havana, he will see never 
again, perhaps, the white brow of Orizava from the southern sea, 
and rest never again under the orange and the banana trees about 
Cordova. 

It was a land old in the world's history that these men rode into, 
and a land stained in the world's crimes — a land filled full of the 
sun and the tropics. What wonder, then, that a deed was done on 
the fifth day's marching that had about it the splendid dash and 
bravado of mediaeval chival^3^ 

Keeping outermost guard one balmy evening far beyond the 
silent camp of the dreaming soldiers, James Wood and Yandell 
Blackwell did vigilant duty in front of the reserve. The fire had 
gone out when the cooking was done, and the earth smelt sweet 
with grasses, and the dew on the grasses. A low pulse of song 

311 



312 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

broke on the bearded faces of the cacti, and sobbed in fading 
cadences as the waves that come in from the salt sea, seeking the 
south wind. This was the vesper strain of the katydids, sad, solac- 
ing, rhythmical. 

Before the wary eyes of the sentinels a figure rose up, waving 
his blanket as a truce flag. Encouraged, he came into the lines, 
not fully assured of his bearings — frightened a little, and prone to 
be communicative by way of propitiation. 

Had the Americans heard of Encarnacion? 

No, they had not heard of Encarnacion. What was Encar- 
nacion? 

The Mexican, born robber and devout Catholic, crossed himself. 
Not to have heard of Encarnacion was next in infamy to have 
slaughtered a priest. Horror made him garrulous. Fear, if it does 
not paralyze, has been known to make the dumb speak. 

Encarnacion was a hacienda, and a hacienda, literally translated, 
is a plantation with royal stables, and acres of corral, and abounding 
water, and long rows of male and female slave cabins, and a Don 
of an owner, who has music, and singing maidens, and pillars of 
silver dollars, and a passionate brief life, wherein wine and women 
rise upon it at last and cut ic short. Even if no ill luck intervenes, 
the pace to the devil is a terrible one, and superb riders though 
they are, the best sent in the saddle sways heavily at last, and the 
truest hand on the rein relaxes ere manhood reaches its noon and 
the shadows of the west. 

Luis Enrico Rodriguez owned Encarnacion, a Spaniard born, and 
a patron saint of all the robbers who lived in the neighboring 
mountains, and of all the senoritas who plaited their hair by the 
banks of his arroyos and hid but charily their dusky bodies in the 
limpid waves. The hands of the French had been laid upon him 
lightly. For forage and foray Dupin had never penetrated the 
mountain line which shut in his guarded dominions from the world 
beyond. When strangers came he gave them greeting; when 
soldiers came, he gave them of his flocks and herds, his wines and 
treasures. 

There was one pearl, however, a pearl of great price, whom no 
stranger eyes had ever seen, whom no stranger tongue had ever 
spoken a fair good morning. The slaves called it a spirit, the 
confessor a sorceress, the lazy gossips a Gringo witch, the man who 
knew best of all called it wife, and yet no sprinkling of water or 
blessing of church had made the name a holy one. 

K^iriguez owned Eacarnacion and Encarnacion owned a skele- 
ton. This much James Wood and Yandell Blackwell knew when 
the half goat-herder and robber had told but half his story. When 
he had finished his other half, this much remained of it: 

Years before in Sonora a California hunter of gold had found 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 313 

his way to some streams where a beautiful Indian woman lived with 
her tribe. They were married, and a daughter was born to them, 
having her father's Saxon hair, and her mother's eyes of tropical 
dusk. From youth to womanhood this daughter had been educated 
in San Francisco. When she returned she was an American, hav- 
ing nothing of her Indian ancestry but its color. Even her mother's 
language was unknown to her. One day in Guaymas, Rodriguez 
looked upon her as a vision. He was a Spaniard and a millionaire, 
and he believed all things possible. The wooing was long, but the 
web, like the web of Penelope, was never woven. He failed in his 
eloquence, in his money, in his passionate entreaties, in his strata- 
gems, in his lyings in wait — in everything that savored of plead- 
ing or purchase. Some men come often to their last dollar — 
never to the end of their audacity. If fate should choose to back 
a lover against the world, fate would give long odds on a Spaniard. 

At last, when everything else had been tried, Rodriguez deter- 
mined upon abduction. This was a common Mexican custom, 
dangerous only in its failure. No matter what the risk, no matter 
how monstrous the circumstances, no matter how many corpses lay 
in the pathway leading up from plotting to fulfillment, so only in 
the end the lusts of the man triumphed over the virtue of the 
woman. Gathering together hastily a band of bravos whose devo- 
tion was in exact proportion to the dollars paid, Rodriguez seized 
upon the maiden, returning late one night from the opera, and 
bore her away with all speed toward Encarnacion. The Califor- 
nian, born of a tiger race that invariably dies hard, mounted such 
few men as loved him and followed on furiously in pursuit. Bereft 
of his young, he had but one thing to do — kill. 

Fixed as fate and as relentless, the race went on. Turning once 
fairly at bay, pursued and pursuers met in a death-grapple. The 
Californian died in the thick of the fight, leaving stern and stark 
traces behind of his terrible prowess. What cared Rodriguez, how- 
ever, for a bravo more or less? The woman was safe, and on his 
own garments nowhere did the strife leave aught of crimson or dust. 
Once well in her chamber — a mistress, perhaps — a prisoner, cer- 
tainly, she beat her wings in vain against the strong bars of her 
palace, for all that gold could give or passion suggest had been 
poured out at the feet of Inez Walker. Servants came and went at 
her bidding. The priest blessed and beamed upon her. The 
captor was fierce by turns, and in the dust at her shrine, by 
turns, but amid it all the face of a murdered father rose up 
in her memory, and prayers for vengeance upon her father's mur- 
derer broke ever from her unrelenting lips. At times fearful 
cries came out from the woman's chamber. The domestics heard 
them and crossed themselves. Once in a terrible storm she fled from 
her thraldom and wandered frantically about until she sank down 



314 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

insensible. She was found alone with her beauty and her agony. 
Rodriquez lifted her in his arms and bore her back to her chamber. 
A fever followed, scorching her wan face until it was pitiful, and 
shredding away her Saxon hair until all its gloss was gone and all 
its silken rippling stranded. She lived on, however, and under the 
lightof a Southern sky, andby the fitful embers of a soldier's bivouac, 
a robber goat-herd was telling the story of an American's daughter 
to an American's son. 

" Was it far to Encarnacion?" 

Jim Wood asked the question in his broken Spanish way, look- 
ing out to the front, musing. 

" By to-morrow night, Senor, you will be there." 

" Have you told the straight truth, Mexican? " 

" As the Virgin is true, Senor." 

"So be it. You will sleep this night at the outpost. To-morrow 
we shall see." 

The Mexican smoked a cigarrito and went to bed. Whether he 
slept or not, he made no sign. Full confidence very rarely lays hold 
of an Indian's heart. 

Replenishing the fire. Wood and Blackwell sat an hour together 
in silence. Beyond the sweeping, untiring glances of the eyes, the 
men were as statues. Finally Blackwell spoke to Wood: 

" Of what are you thinking ? " 

" Encarnacion. And you ? " * 

" Inez Walker. It is the same." 

The Mexican turned in his blanket, muttering. Wood's revolver 
covered him : 

"Lie still," he said, " and muffle up your ears. You may not 
understand English, but you understand this," and he waved the 
pistol menacingly before his eyes. "One never does know when 
these yellow snakes are asleep." 

" No matter," said Blackwell, sententiously; " they never sleep." 

It was daylight again, and although thetwomenhadnotunfolded 
their blankets, they were as fresh as the dew on the grasses — 
fresh enough to have planned an enterprise as daring and as des- 
perate as anything ever dreamed of in romance or set forth in fable. 

The to-morrow night of the Mexican had come, and there lay 
Encarnacion in plain view under the starlight. Rodriguez had 
kept aloft from the encampment. Through the last hours of the 
afternoon wide hatted rancheros had ridden up to the corral in 
unusual numbers, had dismounted and had entered in. Shelby, 
who took note of everything took note also of this. 

"They do not come out," he said. "There are some signs of prep- 
aration about, and some fears manifested against a night attack. 
By whom? Save our grass and goats I know of no reason why 
foraging should be heavier now than formally." 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 3I5 

Twice Jim Wood had been on the point of telling him the whole 
story, and twice his heart had failed him. Shelby was getting 
sterner of late, and the reins were becoming to be drawn tighter and 
tighter. Perhaps it was necessary. Certainly since the last furious 
attack by the guerrillas over beyond Parras, those who had looked 
upon discipline as an ill-favored mistress, had ended by embraciDg 
her. 

As the picquets were being told off for duty, Wood came close 
to Blackwell and whispered : 

"The men will be ready by twelve. They are volunteers and 
splendid fellows. How many of them will be shot? " 

" Quien sahe? Those who take the sword shall perish by the 
sword." 

"Bah! When you take a text, take one without a woman in it." 

" I shall not preach to-night. Shelby will do that to-morrow to 
all who come forth scathless." 

With all his gold, and his leagues of cattle and land, Rodriguez 
had only for eagle's nest an adobe eyrie. Hither his dove had been 
carried. On the right of this long row of cabins ran the quarters of 
his peons. Near to the great gate were acres of corral. Within thi^ 
saddled steeds were in stall, lazily feeding. A Mexican loves his 
horse, but that is no reason why he does not starve him. This 
night, however, Rodriguez was bountiful. For fight and flight both 
men and animals must not go hungry. On the top of the main 
building a kind of tower lifted itself up. It was roomy and spacious 
and flanked by steps that clung to it tenaciously. In the tower a 
light shone, while all below and about it was hushed and impene- 
trable. High adobe walls encircled the mansion, the cabins, the 
corral, the acacia trees, the fountain that splashed plaintively, and 
the massive portal which had mystery written all over its rugged 
outlines. 

It may have been twelve o'clock. The nearest picquet was 
beyond Encarnacion, and the camp guards were only for sentinel 
duty. Free to come and go. the men had no watchword for the 
night. None was needed. 

Suddenly, and if one had looked up from his blankets, he might 
have seen a long, dark line standing out against the sky. This line 
did not move. 

It may have been twelve o'clock. There was no moon, yet the 
stars gave light enough for the men to see each other's faces and to 
recognize one another. It was a quarter of a mile from the camp 
to the hacienda, and about the same distance to the picquet posts 
from where the soldiers had formed. In the ranks one might have 
seen such campaigners — stern and rugged and scant of speech in 
danger — as McDougall, Bos well, Armistead, Winship, Ras Woods, 
Macey, Vines, Kirtley, Blackwell, Tom Rudd, Crockett, Collins, 



316 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Jack Williams, Owens, Timberlake, Darnall, Johnson and the two 
Berrys, Richard and Isaac. Jim Wood stood forward by right as 
leader. All knew he would carry them far enough; some may 
have thought, perhaps, that he would carry them too far. 

The line, hushed now and ominous, still stood as a wall. From 
front to rear Wood walked along its whole length, speaking some 
low and cheering words. 

"Boys," he commenced, "none of us know what is waiting 
inside the corral. Mexicans fight well in the dark, it is said, and 
see better than wolves, but we must have that American woman 
safe out of their hands, or we must burn the buildings. If the 
hazard is too great for any of you, step out of the ranks. What we 
are about to do must needs be done quickly. Shelby sleeps little of 
late, and may be, even at this very moment, searching through the 
camp for some of us. Let him find even so much as one blanket 
empty, and from the heroes of a night attack we shall become its 
criminals." 

Sweeny, a one-armed soldier who had served under Walker in 
Nicaragua, and who was in the front always in hours of enterprise 
or peril, replied to Wood: 

" Since time is valuable, lead on." 

The line put itself in motion. Two men sent forward to try the 
great gate, returned rapidly. Wood met them. 

"Well?" he said. 

" It is dark all about there, and the gate itself is as strong as a 
mountain." 

" We shall batter it down." 

A beam was brought — a huge piece of timber wrenched from the 
upright fastenings of a large irrigating basin. Twenty men manned 
this and advanced upbn the gate. In an instant thereafter there 
were tremendous and resounding blows, shouts, cries, oaths and 
musket shots. Before this gigantic battering-ram adobe walls and 
iron fastenings gave way. The bars of the barrier were broken as 
reeds, the locks were crushed, the hinges were beaten in, and with a 
fierce yell and rush the Americans swarmed to the attack of the 
main building. The light in the tower guided them. A legion of 
devils seemed to have broken loose. The stabled steeds of the 
Mexicans reared and plunged in the infernal din of the fight, and 
dashed hither and thither, masterless and riderless. 

The camp where Shelby rested was alarmed instantly. The 
shrill notes of the bugle were heard over all the tumult, and with 
them the encouraging voice of Wood. 

"Make haste! make haste, men, for in twenty minutes we will 
be between two fires! " 

Crouching in the stables, and pouring forth a murderous fire 
from their ambush in the darkness, some twenty rancTieros made sud- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 317 

den and desperate battle. Leading a dozen men against them, Macy 
and Ike Berry charged through the gloom and upon the unknown, 
guided only by the lurid and fitful flashes of the muskets. When 
the work was over the corral no longer vomited its flame. Silence 
reigned there — that fearful and ominous silence fit only for the dead 
who died suddenly. 

The camp, no longer in sleep, had become menacing. Short 
words of command came out of it, and the tread of men forming 
rapidly for battle . Some skirmishers, even in the very first moments 
of the combat, had been thrown forward quite to the hacienda. 
These were almost nude, and stood out under the starlight as white 
spectres, threatening yet undefined. They had guns at least, and 
pistols, and in so much they were mortal. These spectres had rea- 
son, too. Close upon the fragments of the great gate, and looking 
in upon the waves of the fight as they rose and fell, they yet did not 
fire They believed, at least, that some of their kindred and com- 
rades were there. 

For a brief ten minutes more the combat raged evenly. Cheered 
by the voice of Rodriguez, and stimulated by his example, his 
retainers clung bitterly to the fight. The doors were as redoubts. 
The windows were as miniature casemates. Once on the steps of 
the tower Rodriguez showed himself for a second. A dozen of the 
best shots in the attacking party fired at him. No answer save a 
curse of defiance so harsh and savage that it sounded unnatural even 
in the roar of the furious hurricane. 

There was a lull. Every Mexican combatant outside the main 
building had been killed or wounded. Against the massive walls 
of the adobes the rifle bullets made no headway. It was murder 
longer to oppose flesh to masonry. Tom Rudd was killed, young 
and dauntless; Crockett, the hero of the Lampasas duel, was dead; 
Rogers was dead; the boy Pro vines was dead; Matterhorn, a stark 
giant of a German, shot four times, was breathing his last; and the 
wounded were on all sides, some hard hit, and some bleeding, yet 
fighting on, 

" Once more to the beam," shouted Wood. 

Again the great battering-ram crashed against the great door 
leading into the main hall, and again there was a rending away of 
iron and wood and mortar. Through splintered timber and over 
crumbling and jagged masonry the besiegers poured. The 
building was gained. Once well withinside, the storm of revolver 
balls was terrible. There personal prowess told, and there the 
killing was quick and desperate. At the head of his hunted 
following, Rodriguez fought like the Spaniard he was, stubbornly, 
and to the last. No lamps lit the savage melee. While the 
Mexicans stood up to be shot at, they were shot where they stood. 
The most of them died there. Some few broke away toward the 



;318 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO : 

last and escaped, for no pursuit was attempted, and no man cared 
how many tied nor how fast. It was the woman the Americans 
wanted. Gold and silver ornaments were everywhere, and precious 
tapestry work, and many rare and quaint and woven things, but the 
pawder-blackened and blood-stained hands of the assailants touched 
not one of these. It was too dark to tell who killed Rodriguez. To 
the last his voice could be heard cheering on his men, and calling 
down God's vengeance on the Gringos. Those who fired at him 
specially fired at his voice, for tlie smoke was stifling, and the 
sulphurous fumes of the gunpowder almost unbearable. 

When the hacienda was won Shelby had arrived with the rest of 
the command. He had mistaken the cause of the attack, and his 
mood was of that kind which but seldom came to him, but which, 
when it did come, had several times before made some of his most 
hardened and unruly followers tremble and turn pale. He had 
caused the hacienda to be surrounded closely, and he had come alone 
to the doorway, a look of wrathful menace on his usually placid face. 

"Who among you have done this thing?" he asked, in tones 
that were calm yet full and vibrating. 

No answer. The men put up their weapons. 

" Speak, some of you. Let me not find cowards instead of plun- 
derers, lest I finish the work upon you all that the Mexicans did so 
poorly upon a few." 

Jim Wood came forward to the front then. Covered with blood 
and powder-stains, he seemed in sorry plight to make much head- 
way in defense of the night's doings, yet he told the tale as straight 
as the goat-herd had told it to him, and in such simple soldier 
fashion, taking all the sin upon his own head and hands, that even 
the stern features of his commander relaxed a little, and he fell to 
musing. It may have been that the desperate nature of the enter- 
prise appealed more strongly to his own feelings than he was willing 
that his men should know, or it may have been that his set purpose 
softened a little when he saw so many of his bravest and best sol- 
diers come out from the darkness and stand in silence about their 
leader, Wood, some of them sorely wounded, and all of them cov- 
ered with the signs of the desperate fight, but certain it is that when 
he spoke again his voice was more relenting and assuring: 

" And where is the woman? " 

Through all the terrible moments of the combat the light in the 
tower had burned as a beacon. Perhaps in those few seconds when 
Rodriguez stood alone upon the steps leading up to the doves' nest, 
in a tempest of fire and smoke, the old love might have been busy at 
his heart, and the old yearning strong within him to make at last 
some peace with her for whom he had so deeply sinned, and for 
whose sake he was soon to so dreadfully suffer. Death makes many 
a sad atonement, and though late in coming at times to the evil and 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 319 

tbe good alike, it may be that when the records of the heart are writ 
beyond the wonderful river, much that was dark on earth will be 
bright in eternity, and much that was cruel and fierce in finite judg- 
ment will be made fair and beautiful when it is known how love 
gathered up the threads of destiny, and how all the warp that was 
blood-stained, and all the woof that had bitterness and tears upon 
it, could be traced to a woman's hand. 

Grief-stricken, prematurely old, yet beautiful even amid the lone- 
liness of her situation, Inez Walker came into the presence of 
Shelby, a queen. Some strands of gray were in her glossy, golden 
hair. The liquid light of her large dark eyes had long ago been 
quenched in tears. The form that had once been so full and perfect, 
was now bent and fragile; but there was such a look of mournful 
tenderness in her eager, questioning face that the men drew back 
from her presence instinctively and left her alone with their Gene- 
ral He received her commands as if she were bestowing a favor 
upon him, listening as a brother might until all her wishes were 
made known. These he promised to carry out to the letter, and 
how well he did so, this narrative will further tell. For the rest of 
that night she was left alone with her dead. Recovered somewhat 
from the terrors of the wild attack, her woman came back to her, 
weeping over the slain and praying piteously for their souls as well. 
"When the dead had been buried, when the wounded had been 
cared for, and when Wood had received a warning which he will 
remember to his dying day, the column started once more on its 
march to the south. With the guard of honor regularly detailed to 
protect the families of those who were traveling with the expedi- 
tion, there was another carriage new to the men. None sought to 
know its occupant. The night's work had left upon all a sorrow 
that was never entirely obliterated— a memory tha,t even now, 
through the lapse of long years, comes back to all who witnessed it 
as a memory that brings with it more of real regret than gladness. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The great guns were roaring furiously at Mateliuala when the 
expedition came within hearing distance of its outposts. Night had 
fallen over the city and its twenty thousand inhabitants before the 
advanced guard of the column had halted for further orders. The 
unknown was ahead. All day, amid the mountains, there had come 
upon the breeze the deep, prolonged rumbling of artillery firing; 
and as the column approached nearer and nearer to the city, there 
were mingled with the hoarse voices of the cannon the nearer and 
deadlier rattle of incessant musketry, 

Shelby rode up to the head of his advance and inquired the 
cause of the heavy firing. No one could tell him. 

" Then we will camp," he said. " Afterward a few scouts shall 
determine definitely." 

The number of scouts detailed for the service was not large — 
probably sixty all told. These were divided into four detachments, 
each detachment being sent out in a direction difl;erent from the 
others. James Kirtly led one, Dick Collins another, Jo. Macey the 
third and Dorsey the fourth. They were to bring word back of the 
meaning of all that infernal noise and din, that had been raging about 
Mateliuala the whole day through. And they did it. 

Kirtly took the main road running down squarely into the city. 
A piquet post barred his further progress. Making a circuit cautiously, 
he gained the rear of this, and came upon a line of soldiers in 
bivouac. In the shadow himself, the light of the campfires revealed 
to him the great forms and the swarthy countenances of a battalion of 
guerrillas. Further beyond there were other fires at which other bat- 
talions were cooking and resting. 

Collins was less furtnnate in this that he had to fight a little. 
Warned against using weapons except in self-defense, he had drawn 
up hissmall detachment under the cover of a clump of mesquitebushes 
watching the road along which men where riding to and fro. His 
ambush was discovered and a company of cavalry came galloping 
down to uucover his position. Halted twice they still continued to 
advance. There was no help for it save a point blank volley, and this 
was given with a will and in the darkness. Some saddles were emp- 
tied, and one riderless horse dashed into the midst of the Americans, 
this was secured and carried into camp. 

Macey made a wide detour upon the left of the road, and across 
some cultivated fields in which were a few huts filled with peons. 
Five of these peons were captured and brought back to Shell)y. 
Questioned closely, they revealed the whole situation. Matehuala 

320 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 321 

was held by a Frencli garrison numbering five hundred of the 
Eighty-second Infantry of the line — a weak detachment enough for 
such an exposed outpost. These five hundred Frenchmen were 
commanded by Major Henry Pierron, an officer of extreme youth 
and dauntless enterprise. 

Shelby called a council of his officers at once. The peons had 
further told him that the besieging force was composed of about two 
tliousand guerrillas, under Colonel Escobeda, brother of that other 
one who laughed and was glad exceedingly, when, Maximilian fell 
butchered and betrayed, at Queretero. At daylight the garrison 
was to be attacked again, and so what was to be done had great need 
to be done quickly. 

The officers came readily, and Shelby addressed them. 

" We have marched far, we have but scant money, our horses 
are foot-sore and much in need of shoes, and Matehuala is across 
the only road for scores of miles in any direction that leads to Mex- 
ico. Shall we turn back and take another? " 

" No! no! '' in a kind of angry murmur from the men. 

" But there are two thousand Mexican soldiers, or robbers, who 
are next of kin, across this road, and we may have to fight a little. 
Are you tired of fighting? " 

"Lead us on and see," was the cry, and this time his officers had 
begun to catch his meaning. They understood now that he was 
tempting them. Already determined in his own mind to attack the 
Mexicans at daylight, he simply wished to see how much of his own 
desire was in the bosoms of his subordinates. 

"One other thing," said Shelby, "before we separate. From 
among you I want a couple of volunteers — two men who will take 
their lives in their hands and find an entrance into Matehuala. I 
must communicate with Pierron before daylight. It is necessary 
that he should know how near there is succor to him, and how 
furiously we mean to charge them in the morning. Who will go ? 

All who were present volunteered, stepping one pace nearer to 
their commander in a body. He chose but two — James Cundiff 
and Elias Hodge — two men fit for any mission no matter how forlorn 
or desperate. 

By this time they had learned enough of Spanish to buy meat 
and bread — not enough to pass undetected an outlying guerrilla with 
an eye like a lynx and an ear keener than a coyote's. They started, 
however, just the same. Shelby would write nothing. 

"A document might hang you," he said, " and besides, Pierron 
cannot, in all probability, read my English. Go, and may God pro- 
tect you." 

These two dauntless men then shook hands with their com- 
mander, and with the few, comrades nearest. After that they dis- 
appeared in the unknown. It was a cloudy aight and some wind 



Z22 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

blew. In this they were greatly favored. The darkness hid the 
clear outlines of their forms, and the wind blended the tread of 
their footsteps with the rustling of the leaves and the grasses. 
Two revolvers and a Sharps' carbine each made up the equipment. 
Completely ignorant of the entire topography of the country, they 
yet had a kind of vague idea of the direction in which Matehuala 
lay. The}"" knew that the main road was hard beset by guerrillas, 
and that upon the right a broken and precipitous chain of mount- 
ains encircled the city and made headway in that direction well 
nigh impossible. They chose the left, therefore, as the least of 
three evils. 

It was about midnight, and it was two long miles to Matehuala. 
Shelby required them to enter into the city; about their coming 
back he was not so particular. Cundiff led, Hodge followed in 
Indian fashion. At intervals both men would draw themselves up 
and listen, long and anxiously. At last after crossing a wide field, 
intersected by ditches and but recently plowed, they came to a road 
which had a mesquite hedge on one side, and a fence with a few 
straggling poles in it, on the other. Gliding stealthily down this 
road, the glimmering of a light in front warned them of immediate 
danger. In avoiding this they came upon another house, and in 
going still further to the left to avoid this also, they found them- 
selves in the midst of a kind of extended village, one of those inter- 
minable suburbs close to yet disconnected from all Mexican cities. 

Wherever there was a tienda — that is to say, a place where the 
fiery native drink of the country is sold — two or three saddle horses 
might have been seen. In whispers, the men conferred together. 

" They are here," said Hodge. 

"They seem to be everywhere," answered Cundiff. 

" What do you propose ? " 

"To glide quietly through. I have a strong belief that beyond 
this village we shall find Matehuala." 

They struck out boldly again, passing near to a tienda in which 
there were music and dancing. When outside of the glare of the 
light which streamed from its open door, the sound of horses' feet 
coming down the road they had just traveled called for instant con- 
cealment. They crouched low behind a large maguey plant and 
waited. The horsemen came right onward, laughing loud and 
boisterously. They did not halt in the village, but rode on by the 
ambush and so close that they could have touched the Americans 
with a sabre. 

" A scratch," said Hodge, breathing more freely. 

"Hush," said Cundiff, crouching still closer in the shadow of the 
maguey, " the worst is yet to come." 

And it was. From where the Americans had hidden to the 
tienda m which the Mexicans were carousing it was probably fifteen 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 323 

paces. The sudden galloping of the horsemen through the village 
had startled the revelers. If they were friends, they called out 
to each other, they would have tarried long enough for a stirrup 
cup ; if they are enemies we shall pursue. 

The Mexicans were a little drunk, yet not enough so to make 
them negligent. After mounting their horses, they spread out in 
skirmishing order, with an interval, probably, of five feet between 
each man. Against the full glare that streamed out from the 
lighted doorway the picturesque forms of five guerrillas outlined 
themselves. The silver ornaments on their bridles shone, the 
music of the spurs penetrated to the ambush, and the wide 
sombreros told all too well the calling of those mounted robbers who 
are wolves in pursuit and tigers in victory. None have ever been 
known to spare. 

Hodge would talk, brave as he was, and imminent as was his 
peril. Even in this extremity his soldierly tactics came uppermost. 

"There are five," he said, "and we are but two. We have 
fought worse odds. " 

"So we have," answered Cundiff, "and may do it again before 
this night's work is over. Lie low and wait." 

The guerrillas came right onward. At a loss to understand fully 
the nature of the men who had just ridden through the village, 
they were maneuvering now as if they expected to meet them in 
hostile array at any moment. There were fifty chances to five that 
some one of the skirmishers would discover the ambush. 

Although terrible, the suspense was brief. Between the maguey 
plant and the road, two of the guerrillas filled up the interval. 
This left the three others to the left and rear. They had their mus- 
quetoons in their hands, and were searching keenly every clump of 
grass or patch of underbrush. Those nearest the road had passed 
on, and those upon the left were just abreast of the ambush. The 
Americans did not breathe. Suddenly, and with a fierce shout, the 
third skirmisher in the line yelled out: 

"What ho! comrades, close up — close up — here are two skulk- 
ing Frenchmen. Per Bios, but we will have their hearts' blood." 

As he shouted he leveled his musket until its muzzle almost 
touched the quiet face of Cundiff , the rest of the Mexicans rushing 
up furiously to the spot. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Ip it be true, that when a woman hesitates she is lost, the adage 
applies with a ten-fold greater degree of precision to a Mexican 
guerrilla, who has come suddenly upon an American in ambush 
and who, mistaking him for a French soldier, hesitates to fire until* 
he has called around him his comrades. A revolver to a Frenchman 
■is an unknown weapon. Skill in its use is something he never 
acquires. Rarely a favorite in his hands no matter how great the 
stress, nor how frightful the danger, it is the muzzle-loader that 
ever comes uppermost, favored above all other weapons that might 
have been had for the asking. 

Gundiff, face to face with immiment death, meant to fight to the 
last. His orders were to go into Matehuala, and not to give up as 
a wolf that is taken in a trap. His revolver was in his hand, and the 
Mexican took one second too many to run his eye along the barrel of 
his musquetoon. With a motion as instantaneous as it was unex- 
pected, Gundiff fired fair at the Mexican's breast, the bullet speed- 
ing true and terrible to its mark. He fell forward over his horse's 
head with a ghastly cry, his four companions crowding around his 
prostrate body, frightened, it may be, but bent on vengeance. As 
they grouped themselves together, Hodge and Gundiff shot 
into the crowd, wounding another guerrilla and one of the 
horses, and then broke away from cover and rushed on toward 
Matehuala. The road ran directly through a village This 
village was long and scattering, and alive with soldiers. A great 
shout was raised; ten thousand dogs seemed to be on the alert, more 
furious than the men, and keener of sight and scent. The fight 
became a hunt. The houses sent armed men in pursuit. The five 
guerrillas, reduced now to three, led the rush, but not desperately. 
Made acquainted with the stern prowess of the Americans, they had 
no heart for a close grapple without heavy odds. At intervals 
Gundiff and Hodge would halt and fire back with their carbines, 
and then press forward again through the darkness. Two men 
were keeping two hundred at bay, and Gundiff spoke to Hodge: 
*' This pace is fearful. How long can you keep it up?" 
" Not long. There seems, however, to be a light ahead." 
And there was. A large fire, distance some five hundred yards, 
came suddenly insight. The rapid firing coming from both pur- 
suers and pursued had created commotion in front. There were 
the rallying notes of a bugle, and the sudden forming of a line of 
men immediately in front of the camp-fire seen by the Americans. 
Was it a French outpost ? Neither knew, but against this unforeseen 

334 



AN UNWllITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR. 325 

danger now outlined fully in the front that in the rear was too near 
and too deadly to permit of preparation. 

" We are surrounded," said Hodge. 

"Rather say we are in the breakers, and that in trying to avoid 
Scylla we shall be wrecked upon Charybdis," replied Cundill, turn- 
ing cooly to his comrade, after firing deliberately upon the nearest 
of the pursuers, and halting long enough to reload his carbine. " It 
all depends upon a single chance." 

" And what is that chance ?" 

'* To escape the first close fusillade of the French." 

" But are they French — those fellows in front of us ?" 

" Can't you swear to that ? Did you not mark how accurately 
they fell into line, and how silent everything has been since ? Keep 
your ears wide open, and when you hear a single voice call out. fall 
flat upon the ground. That single voice will be the leader's ordering 
a volley. " 

It would seem that the Mexicans also had begun to realize the 
situation. A last desperate rush had been determined upon, and 
twenty of the swiftest and boldest pursuers charged furiously down 
at a run, firing as they came on. There was no shelter, and Cundiff 
and Hodge stood openly at bay, holding, each, his fire, until the 
oncoming mass was only twenty yards away. Then the revolver 
volleys were incessant. At a distance they sounded as if a company 
were engaged; to the guerrillas the two men had multiplied them- 
selves to a dozen. 

The desperate stand made told well. The fierce charge expended 
itself. Those farthest in the front slackened their pace, halted, fell 
back, retreated a little, yet still kept up an incessant volley. 

"Come," said Cundiff, "and let's try the unknown. These 
fellows in the rear have had enough." 

Instead of advancing together now, one skirted the road on the 
left and the other on the right. The old skirmishing drill was 
beginning to re-assert itself again — a sure sign that the danger in 
the rear had transferred itself to the front. Of a sudden a clear, 
resonant voice came from the direction of the fire. Cundiff and 
Hodge fell forward instantly upon their faces, a hurricane of balls 
swept over and beyond them, and for reply the loud, calm shout of 
Hodge was heard in parley: 

" Hold on, men, hold on. We are but two and we are friends. 
See, we come into your lines to make our words good. We are 
Americans and we have tidings for Captain Pierron." 

Four French soldiers came out to meet them. Explanations 
were mutually had, and it was long past midnight when the com- 
mander of the garrison had finished his conference with the daring 
scouts, and had been well assured of his timely and needed succor. 

Pierron offered them food and lodging. 



3:26 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

*• We must return," said Cundiff. 

The Frenchman opened his eyes wide with surprise. 

" Return, the devil ! You have not said your prayers yet for 
Lieing permitted to get in." 

"No matter. He prays best who fights the best, and Shelby 
gives no thanks for unfinished work. Am I right, Hodge ? " 

" Now as always ; but surely Captain Pierron can send us by a 
nearer road." 

The Frenchman thus appealed to, gave the two men an escort of 
forty cuirassiers and sent them back to Shelby's camp by a road but 
slightly guarded, the Mexican picquets upon it firing but once at 
long range and then scampering away. 

It w^as daylight, and the great guns were roaring again. The 
column got itself in motion at once and waited. Shelby's orders 
were repeated by each captain to his company, and in words so 
plain that he who ran might have understood. The attack was to 
be made in columns of fours, the men firing right and left from the 
two files as they dashed in among the Mexicans. It was the old way 
of doing deadly work, and not a man there was unfamiliar with the 
duty marked out for his hands to do. 

Largely outnumbered, the French were fighting men who know 
that defeat means destruction. Many of them had been killed. 
Pierron was anxious, and through the rising mists of the morning, 
his eyes more than once and with an eagerness not usually there, 
looked away to the front where he knew the needed succor lay. 
It came as it always came, whether to friend or foe, in time. Not 
a throb of the laggard's pulse had Shelby ever felt, and upon this 
day of all days of his stormy career he meant to do a soldier's 
sacred duty. From a walk the column passed into a trot, Shelby 
leading. There was no advance guard ahead, and none was needed. 

" We know what is before us,'' was his answer to Langhorne. 
* ' and it is my pleasure this morning to receive the fire first of you all. 
Take your place with your company, the fifth from the front." 

" Gallop— march ! " 

The men gathered up the reins and straightened themselves in their 
stirrups. Some Mexicans were in the road before them and halted. 
The apparition to them came from the unknown. They might have 
been specters, but they were armed, and armed specters are terri- 
ble. The alarm of the night before had been attributed to the dar- 
ing of two adventurous Frenchmen. Not one of the besieging 
host had dreamed that a thousand Americans were within two miles 
of Matehuala, resolved to fight for the besieged, and take the 
investing lines in rear and at the gallop. 

On one side of the road down which Shelby was advancing there 
ran a chain of broken and irregular hills, on the other, the long, 
straggling village in which Cundiff and Hodge had well nigh sac- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 327 

rificed themselves. These the daylight revealed perfectly. Between 
the hills and the village was a plain, and in this plain, the Mexican 
forces were drawn up, three lines deep, having aaapoint d'appui a 
heavy six-gun battery. 

Understanding at last that while the column coming down from 
the rear was not Frenchmen, it was not friendly, the Mexicans made 
some dispositions to resist it. Too late! Caught between two inex- 
orable jaws, they were crushed before they were aware of the peril. 
Shelby's charge was like a thunder-cloud. Nothing could live before 
the storm of its revolver bullets. Lurid, canopied in smoke-wreaths, 
pitiless, keeping right onward, silent in all save the roar of the 
revolvers, there was first a line that fired upon it, and then a great 
upheaving and rending asunder . When the smoke rolled away the 
battery had no living thing to lift a hand in its defense, and the 
fugitives were in hopeless and helpless flight toward the mountains 
on the right and toward the village upon the left. Pursuit Shelby 
made none, but God pity all whom the French cuirassiers over- 
took, and who, cloven from sombrero to sword-belt, fell thick in all 
the streets of the village, and died hard among the dagger-trees and 
the precipices of the stony and unsheltering mountains. 

Pierron came forth with his entire garrison to thank and wel- 
come his preservers. The freedom of the city was extended to 
Shelby, the stores of the post were at his disposal, money was 
offered and refused, and for three long and delightful days the men 
rested and feasted. To get shoes for his horses Shelby had fought 
a battle, not bloodless, however, to him, but a battle treasured 
to-day in the military archives of France — a battle which won for 
him the gratitude of the whole French army, and which, in the end, 
turned from him the confidence of Maximilian and rendered 
abortive all his efforts to recruit for the Austrian a corps that would 
have kept him upon his throne. Verily, man proposes and God 
disposes. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PiERRON made Matehuala a paradise. There were days of feast- 
ing and mirth and minstrelsy, and in the balm of fragrant nights 
the men dallied with the women. So when the southward march 
was resumed, many a bronzed face was set in a look of sadness, and 
many a regretful heart pined long and tenderly for the dusky hair 
that would never be plaited again, for the tropical lips that for 
them would never sing again the songs of the roses and the summer 
time. 

Adventures grew thick along the road as cactus plants. Villages 
multiplied, and as the ride went on, larger towns and larger popula- 
tions were daily entered into. The French held all the country. 
Everywhere could be seen the picturesque uniforms of the Zouaves, 
the soberer garments of the Voltigeurs, the gorgeous array of the 
Chasseurs, and the more somber and forbidding aspect of the Foot 
Artillery. The French held all the country, that is to say, wher- 
ever a French garrison had stationed itself, or wherever a French 
expeditionary force, or scouting force, or reconnoitering force had 
camped or was on the march, such force held all the country within 
the range of their cannon and their chassepots. Otherwise not. 
Guerrillas abounded in the mountains; robbers fed and fattened by 
all the streams; spies swarmed upon the haciendas, and cruel and 
ruthless scourges from the marshes rode in under the full of the 
tropical moons, and slew for a whole night through, and on many 
a night at intervals thereafter, whoever of Mexican or Punic faith 
had carried truth or tidings of Liberal movements to the French. 

It was in Dolores, the home of Hidalgo — priest, butcher, revolu- 
tionist — that*thosG wonderful blankets were made which blend the 
colors of the rainbow with the strength of the north wind. Soft, 
warm, gorgeous, flexible, two strong horses can not pull them 
asunder — two weeks of an east rain can not find a pore to penetrate. 
Marvels of an art that has never yet been analyzed or transferred; 
Dolores, a century old, has yet an older secret than itself, the secret 
of their weaving. 

Shelby's discipline was now sensibly increasing. As the men 
marched into the south, and as the soft airs blew for them, and the 
odorous blossoms opened for them, and the dusky beauties were 
gay and gracious for them, they began to chafe under the iron rule 
of the camp, and the inexorable logic of guard and picquet duty. 
Once a detachment of ten, told off for the grand guards, refused 
to stir from the mess-fire about which an elegant supper was being 

prepared. 

3S8 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 329 

And in such guise did tlie word come to Shelby. 

" They refuse? " he asked. 

"Peremptorily, General." 

"Ah! And for what reason? " 

"They say it is unnecessary." 

" And so, in addition to rank mutiny, they would justify them- 
selves? Call out the guard " 

The guard came, Jo. Macey at its head — twenty determined 
men, fit for any work a soldier might do. Shelby rose up and went 
with it to where the ten mutineers were feasting and singing. 
They knew what was coming, and their leader, brave even to des- 
peration, laid his hand upon his revolver. There was murder in 
his eyes, that wicked and wanton murder which must have been 
in Sampson's heart wlien he laid hold of the pillar of the Temple 
and felt the throes of the crushing edifice as it swayed and toppled 
and buried all ia a common ruin. 

Jo. Macey halted his detachment within five feet of the mess 
fire. He had first whispered to Shelby: 

" When you want me speak. I shall kill nine of the ten the first 
broadside." 

It can do no good to write the name of the leader of the muti 
neers. He sleeps to-day in the golden sands of a Sonora stream; 
sleeps forgiven by all whose lives he might have given away — 
given away without cause or grievance. When he dared to disobey, 
either this man or the Expedition had to be sacrificed. Happily, 
both were saved. 

Shelby walked into the midst of the mutineers, looking into the 
eyes of all. His voice was deep and very grave. 

" Men. go back to your duty. I am among you all, an ad- 
venturer like yourself, but I have been charged to carry you 
through to Mexico City in safety, and this I will do, so surely as the 
good God rules the universe. I don't seek to know the cause of this 
thing. I ask no reason for it, no excuse for it, no regrets nor apolo- 
gies for it. I only want your soldierly promise to obey." 

No man spoke. The leader mistook the drift of things and tried 
to advance a little. Shelby stopped him instantly. 

"Not another word," he almost shouted; " but if within fifteen 
seconds by the watch you are not in line for duty, you shall be shot 
like the meanest Mexican dog in all the Empire. Cover these men, 
Macey, with your carbines." 

Twenty gaping muzzles crept straight to the front, waiting. The 
seconds seemed as hours. In that supreme moment of unpitying 
danger the young mutineer, if left to himself, would have dared the 
worst, dying as he had lived; but the others could not look full into 
the face of the grim skeleton and take the venture for a cause so 
disgraceful. They yielded to the inevitable, and went forth to 



330 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

their duty bearing their leader with them. Thereafter no more 
faithful and honorable soldiers could be found in the ranks of all 
the Expedition. 

The column had gone southward from Dolores a long day's 
journey. The whole earth smelt sweet with spring. In the air was 
the noise of many wings, on the trees the purple and pink of many 
blossoms. Summer lay with bare breast upon all the fields — a 
queen whose rule had never known an hour of storm or overthrow. 
It was a glorious land filled full of the sun and of the things that 
love the sun. 

Late one afternoon, tired, hot and dusty, Dick Collins and Ik 
Berry halted by the wayside for a little rest and a little gossip. 
In violation of orders this thing had been done, and Mars is a jealous 
and a vengeful god. They tarried long, smoking a bit and talking 
a bit, and finally fell asleep, 

A sudden scout of guerrillas awoke the gentlemen, using upon 
Collins the back of a saber, and upon Berry, who was larger and 
sounder of slumber, the butt of a musquetoon. There were six of 
them — swart, soldierly fellows, who wore gilded spurs and bedecked 
sombreros. 

" Francaisces, eh! " they muttered one to another. 

Berry knew considerable Spanish — Collins not so much. To lie 
under the imputation of being French was to lie within the shadow 
of sudden death. Berry tried to keep away from that. He 
answered: 

" No, no, Senors, not Francaisces but Americanos." 

The Mexicans looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. 

Berry had revealed to them that he spoke Spanish enough to be 
dangerous. 

Their pistols were taken from them; their carbines, their horses, 
and whatever else could be found, including a few pieces of silver 
in Berry's pocket. Then they felt of Collins' pantaloons. It had 
been so long since they echoed to the jingle of either silver or 
gold, that even the pockets issued a protest at the imputation. 
Afterward the two men were marched across the country to a 
group of adobe buildings among a range of hills, far enough 
removed from the route of travel to be safe from rescue. They 
were cast into a filthy room where there was neither bed nor 
blanket, and bade to rest there. Two of the guard, with musque- 
toons in hand and revolvers at waist, occupied the same room. With 
them, the dirt and the fleas were congenial companions. 

Collins fell a musing. 

" What are you thinking about, Dick? " Berry asked, 

" Escape. And you? " 

" Of something to eat." 

Here was a Hercules who was always hungry. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 331 

A Mexican, in his normal condition must have drink. A stone 
ewer of fiery Catalan was brought in, and as the night deepened, so 
did their potations. Before midnight the two guards were drunk. 
An hour later, and one of them was utterly oblivious to all earthly 
objects. The other amused himself by pointing his cocked gun at 
the Americans, laughing low and savagely when they would 
endeavor to screen themselves from his comic mirth. 

His drunken comrade was lying on his back, with a scarf 
around his waist, in which a knife was sticking. 

Collins looked at it until his eyes glittered. He found time to 
whisper to Berry: 

" You are as strong as an ox. Stand by me when I seize that 
knife and plunge it in the other Mexican's breast. I may not kill 
him the first time, and if I do not, then grapple with him. The 
second stab shall be more fatal." 

" Unto death," replied Berry. " Make haste." 

For one instant the guard took his eyes from the movements of 
the Americans. Collins seized the knife and rose up — stealthy, 
menacing, terrible. They advanced upon the Mexican. He turned 
as they came across the room and threw out his gun. Too late. 
Aiming at the left side, Collins' blow swerved aside, the knife enter- 
ing just below the breast bone and cutting a dreadful gash. With 
the spring of a tiger-cat Berry leaped upon him and hurled him to 
the floor. Again the knife arose — there was a dull, penetrating 
thud, a quiver of relaxing limbs, a groan that sounded like a curse, 
and beside the drunken man there lay another who would never 
touch Catalan again this side eternity. 

Instant flight was entered into. Stripping the arms from the 
living and the dead, the Americans hurried out. They found their 
horses unguarded; the wretched village was in unbroken sleep, and 
not anywhere did wakeful or vigilant sentinel rise up to question or 
restrain. By the noon of the next day they had reported to Shelby, 
and for many days thereafter a shadow was seen on Collins' face 
that told of the desperate blow struck in the name of self-defense 
and liberty. After that the two men never straggled again. 

Crosses are common in Mexico. Lifting up their penitential 
arms, however, by the wayside, and in forlorn and gloomy places, 
if they do not affright one, they at least put one to thinking. There 
where they stand, ghastly and weather-beaten under the sky, and 
alone with the stars and the night, murder has been done. There 
at the feet of them — in the yellow dust of the roadway — innocent, it 
may be, and true, and too young to die — a dead man has lain with 
his face in a pool of blood. Sometimes flowers adorn the crosses, 
and votive offerings, and many a rare and quaint conceit to lighten 
the frown on the face of death, and fashion a few links in the chain 
of memory that shall make even the dead claim kinship with all the 
glad and sweet-growing things of the wonderful summer weather. 



333 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO: 

Over beyond Dolores Hidalgo, a pleasant two-days' journey, 
there was a high hill that held a castle. On either side of this there 
were heavy masses of timber. Below the fall of the woodlands a 
meadow stretched itself out, bounded on the hither side by a stream 
that was limpid and musical. Beyond this stream a broken way 
began, narrowing down at last to a rugged defile, and opening once 
more into a country fruitful as Paradise and filled as full of the 
sun. 

Just where the defile broke away from the shade of the great 
oaks a cross stood, whose history had a haunting memory that was 
sorrowful even in that sinful and sorrowful land. There was a 
young girl who lived in this castle, very fair for a Mexican, and very 
steadfast and true. The interval is short between seedtime and 
harvest, and she ripened early. In the full glory of her beauty and 
her womanhood she was plighted to a young commandante from 
Dolores, heir of many fertile acres, a soldier and an Imperialist. 
Maybe the wooing was sweet, for what came after had in it enough 
of bitterness and tears. The girl had a brother who was a guerrilla 
chief, devoted, first to his profession and next to the fortunes of 
Juarez. Spies were everywhere, and even from his own household 
news was carried of the courtship and the approaching marriage. 

For days and days he watched by the roadside, scanning all 
faces that hurried by, seeking alone for the face that might 
have been told for its happiness. One night there was a trampling 
of horsemen, and a low voice singing tenderly under the moon. 
The visit had been long, and the parting passionate and pure. Only 
a little ways with love at his heart and the future so near with its 
outstretched hands as to reach up almost to the marriage-ring. No 
murmur ran along the lips of the low-lying grasses, and no sentinel 
angel rose up betwixt fate and its victim. His uniform; carried 
death in its yellow and gold. Not to his own alone had the fair- 
haired Austrian brought broken hearts and stained and sundered 
marriage vows. Only the clear, long ring of a sudden musket, and 
thedead Imperialist lay with his face in the dust and his spirit going 
the dark way all alone. From such an interview why ride to such 
an ending? No tenderness availed him, no caress consoled him, no 
fond farev/ell gave him staff and script for the journey. He died 
where the woods and the meadows met — for a love by manhood and 
faith anointed. 

In the morning there had been lifted up a cross. It was standing 
there still in the glorious weather. The same flowers were bloom- 
ing still, the same stream swept on by the castle gates, the same 
splendid sweep of woodland and meadow spread itself out as 
God's land loved of the sky — but the gallant Commandante, where 
was he? Ask of the masses that the pitying angels heard and car- 
ried on their wings to heaven. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 333 

One tall spire, like the mighty standard of a king, arose through 
the lances of the sunset. San Miguel was in sight, a city built upon 
a hill. Around its forbidding base the tide of battle had ebbed and 
flowed, and there had grim old Carterac called out, the cloud of the 
cannon's smoke and the cloud of his beard white together. 

"My children, the Third know how to die. One more victory 
and one more cross for all of you. Forward !" 

This to the Third Zouaves as they were fixing bayonets on the 
crest of a charge with which all the empire rang. Afterward, 
when Carterac was buried, shot foremost in the breach, the natives 
came to view the grave and turned away wondering what manner 
of a giant had been interred therein. He had gone but a little way 
in advance of his children. What San Miguel had spared Grave- 
lotte finished. Verily war has its patriarchs no less renowned than 
Israel's. 

From out the gates of the town, and down the long paven way 
leading northward, a gallant regiment came gaily forth to welcome 
Shelby. The music of the sabers ran through the valley. Pennons 
floated wide and free, the burnished guns rose and fell in the dim, 
undulating swing of perfect horsemen, and the rays of the setting 
sun shone upon the gold of the epaulettes until, as with fire, they 
blazed in the delicious haze of the evening. 

Some paces forward of all the goodly company rode one who 
looked a soldier. Mark him well. That regiment there is known 
as the Empress' Own. The arms of Carlota are on the blue of the 
uniforms. That silken flag, though all unbaptized by blood or battle, 
was wrought by her gentle hands — hands that wove into the tapestry 
of time a warp and woof sadder than aught of any tragedy ever 
known before the king-craft or conquest. She was standing by a 
little altar in the palace of Chepultepec on an afternoon in May. 
The city of Montezuma was at her feet in the delicious sleep of its 
siesta. 

" Swear," she said, putting forth the unfolded standard until the 
sweep of its heavy fringes canopied the long, lustrous hair of the 
Colonel, " swear to be true to king and country." 

The man knelt down. 

" To king and queen and country," he cried, " while a sword can 
be drawn or a squadron mustered." 

She smiled upon him and gave him her hand as he arose. This 
he stooped low to kiss, repeating again his oath, and pledging again 
all a soldier's faith to the precious burden laid upon his honor. 

Look at him once more as he rides up from the town through 
the sunset. At his back is the regiment of Carlota, and over this 
regiment the stainless banner of Carlota is floating. The face is very 
fair for a Mexican's, and a little Norman in its handsome outlines. 
Some curls were in the lustrous hair, not masculine curls, but royal 



334 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO 2.II.XIC0 ; 

enough, perhaps, to recall the valorous deet'sthat were clone at Flod- 
den, when from over seas the beautiful Queen of France, beloved of 
all gallant gentlemen, sent to the Scottish monarch 

" A turquoise ring and glove. 
And charged him as her knight and love. 
To march three miles on English land. 
And strike three strokes with Scottish brand, 
And bid the banners of his band 
In English breezes dance." 

He gave Shelby cordial greeting, and made him welcome to San 
Miguel in the name of the Empire. His eyes, large and penetrating, 
wore yet a sinister look that marred somewhat the smile that 
should have come not so often to the face of a Spaniard. He spoke 
English well, talked much of New York which he had visited, 
predicted peace and prosperity to Maximilian and his reign after a 
few evil days, and bowed low in salute when he separated. 

That man was Col Leonardo Lopez, the traitor of Queretero, the 
spy of Escobedo, the wretch who sold his flag, the coward who 
betrayed his regiment, the false knight who denied his mistress, and 
the decorated and ennobled thing who gave up his emperor to a 
dog's death. And the price — thirty thousand dollars in gold. Is it 
any wonder that his wife forsook him, that his children turned their 
faces away from him, that the church refused him asylum, that a 
righteous soldier of the Liberal cause smote him upon either cheek 
in presence of an army on parade, and that even the very lazzaroni 
of the streets pointed at him as he passed, and shouted in voluble 
derision : 

" The Traitor ! the Traitor !" 

And yet did all these things happen to the handsome horseman 
who rode up quietly to the Expedition in front of San Miguel, and 
bade it welcome in the name of hospitality and the Empire. 

Gen. Felix Douay held San Luis Potosi, the great granary of 
Mexico. It was the brother of this Douay who, surrounded and 
abandoned at Weissembourg, marched alone and on foot toward 
the enemy, until a Prussian bullet found his heart. Older and 
calmer and wiser, perhaps, than his brother, Gen. Felix Douay 
was the strong right arm of Bazaine and Maximilian. Past sixty, 
gray-bearded and gaunt, he knew war as the Indian knows a trail. 
After assigning quarters to the men, he sent at once for Shelby. 

"You have come among us for an object," he commenced in per- 
fect English, "and as I am a man of few words, please state to me 
frankly what that object is." 

"To take service under Maximilian," was the prompt reply. 

"What are your facilities for recruiting a corps of Americans?" 

"So ample. General, that if authority is given me, I can pledge 
to you the services of fifty thousand in six months." 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 335 

Some other discourse was had hetween them, and Douay fell to 
musing a little. When he was done he called an aide to his side, wrote 
a lenghty communication, bade the staff officer take it and ride rap- 
idly to the City of Mexico, returning with the same speed when he 
had received his answer. 

As he extended his hand to Shelby in parting, he said to him: 

"You will remain here until further orders. It may be that there 
shall be work for your hands sooner than either of us expect." 

Southward from San Luis Potosi, and running far down to the 
Gulf, even unto Tampico, was a low, level sweep of land, where 
marshes abounded and retreats that were almost unknown and well 
nigh inaccessible. In the fever months, the fatal months of August 
and September these dismal fens and swamps were alive with guer- 
rillas. Vomito lurked in the long lagoons, and lassitude, emaciation 
and death peered out from behind every palm tree and cypress root. 
Foreigners there were none who could abide that dull greyish 
exhalation which wrought for the morning a winding sheet, and for the 
French it was not only the valley, but the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death. Bazaine's light troops, his Yoltigeurs and his Chasseurs of 
Vincennes, had penetrated there and died. Most of the Foreign 
Legion had gone in there and perished. Two battalions of Zouaves 
—great, bearded, medaled fellows, bronzed by Syrian night winds, 
and tempered to steel in the sap and siege of Sebastopol — had borne 
their eagles backward from the mist, famishing because of a fever 
came with the morning and the fog. 

No matter how, the guerrillas fattened. Reptiles need little 
beside the ooze and the foetid vegetation of the lowlandB, and so 
when the rains came and the roads grew wearisome and long, they 
rose upon the convoys night after night, massaciing all that fell 
into their hands, even the women and the live stock. 

Figueroa was the fell spirit of the marshes — a Mexican past 
forty-five, one-eyed from the bullet of an American's revolver, tall 
for his race, and so bitter and unrelenting in his hatred of all foreign- 
ers, especially Americans, that when he dies he will be canonized. If 
in all his life he ever knew an hour of mercy or relenting, no record 
in story or tradition stands as its monument. Backward across the 
Rio Grande there have been borne many tales of Escobedo and Cara- 
bajal, Martinez and Cortina, Lozado the Indian and Rodriguez the 
renegade priest ; but for deeds of desperate butchery and vengeance, 
the fame of all these is as the leaves that fell last autumn. 

No matter his crimes, however, he fought as few of them do for 
his native land, and dreaded but two things on earth — Dupin and 
his Contre-Guerrillas. Twice they had brought him to bay, and 
twice he had retired deeper and deeper into his jungles, sacrificing 
all the flower of his following, and pressed so furiously and fast 
that at no time thereafter could he turn as a hunted tiger and 
rend the foremost of his pursuers. 



336 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Figueroa lay close to tlie liigli national road running from San 
Luis Potosi to Tampico, levying such tribute as lie could collect by 
night and in a manner that left none on the morrow to demand 
recompense or reckoning. Because it was a post in possession of 
the French it was necessary for Douay to have safe and constant 
intercourse with Tampico. This was impossible so long as Figue- 
roa lived in the marshes and got fat on the fog that brought only 
fever and death to the Frenchman and the foreigner Three expe- 
ditions had been sent down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death 
and had returned; those that were left of them soldiers no longer, 
but skeletons whose uniforms served only to make the contrast 
ghastly. The road was still covered with ambushments, and creep- 
ing and crawling forms that murdered when they should have 
slept. 

With the arrival of Shelby a sudden resolution had come to 
Douay. He meant to give him service in the French army, send 
him down first to fight the fog and Figueroa, and afterward — well, 
the future gives generally biit small concern to a Frenchman — 
but afterward there could have been no doubt of Douay's good 
intentions, and of a desire to reward all liberally who did his bidding 
and who came out of the swamps alive. For permission to do this 
he had sent forward to consult Bazaiue, and had halted Shelby long 
enough to know the Marshal's wishes. 

The aid-de-camp returned speedily, but he brought with him only 
a short, curt order : 

" Bid the Americans march immediately to Mexico." 

There was no appeal. Douay marshaled the expedition, served 
it with rations and wine, spoke some friendly and soldierly words 
to all of its officers, and bade them a pleasant and a prosperous 
journey. Because he possessed no baton is no reason why he should 
not have interpreted aright the future, and seen that the auspicious 
hours were fast hastening away when it would be no longer possible 
to recruit an army and attach to the service of Maximilian a power- 
ful corps of Americans, Bazaine had mistrusted their motives from 
the first, and had been more than misinformed of their movements 
and their numbers since the expedition had entered the Empire. As 
for the Emperor his mind had been poisoned by his Mexican coun- 
selors, and he was too busy then with his botany and his butterflies 
to heed the sullen murmurings of the gathering storm in the north, 
and to understand all the harsh, indomitable depths of that stoical 
Indian character which was so soon to rush down from Chihuahua 
and gratify its ferocious appetite in the blood of the uptorn and 
uprooted dynasty. They laughed at Juarez then, the low, squat 
Indian, his sinister face scarred with the small pox like Mirabeau's, 
and his sleuth-hound ways that followed the trail of the Republic, 
though in the scent there was pestilence and famine and death. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 837 

One day the Frencli lines began to contract as a wave that is baffled 
and broken. The cliff followed up the wave, and mariners like 
Douay and Jeanningros, looking out from the quarter-deck, 
saw not only the granite, but the substance, the granite 
typified; they saw Juarez and his forty thousand ragged 
followers, hungry, brutal, speaking all dialects, grasping bright 
American muskets, having here and there an American officer in 
uniform, unappeasable, [oncoming — murderous. Again the waves 
receded and again there was Jaurez, From El Paso to Chihua- 
hua, from Chihuahua to Matamoras, from Matamoras to Monterey, 
to Matehuala, to Dolores Hidalgo, to San Miguel, to the very spot 
on which Douay stood at parting, his bronzed face saddened and 
his white hair waving in the winds of the summer morning. 

It was no war of his, however. What he was sent to do he did. 
Others planned, Douay executed. It might have been better if 
the fair-haired sovereign had thought more and asked more of the 
gray haired subject. 

It was on the third day's march from San Luis Potosi that an 
ambulance broke down, having in its keeping two wounded soldiers 
of the Expedition. The accident was near the summit of the Madre 
mountains — an extended range between San Luis Potosi and Pena- 
mason— and within a mile of the village of Sumapetla. The rear 
guard came within' without it. In reporting, before being dismissed 
for the night, Shelby asked the officer of the ambulance. 

*' It is in Sumapetla," the Captain answered. 

"And the wounded?" 

" At a house with one attendant." 

His face darkened. The whole Madre range was filled with rob- 
bers, and two of his best men, wounded and abandoned, were at the 
mercy of the murderers. 

" If a hair of either head is touched," he cried out to the officer, 
"it will be better that you had never crossed the Rio Grande. 
What avails all the lessons you have learned of this treacherous and 
deceitful land that you should desert comrades in distress and ride 
up to tell me the pleasant story of your own arrival and safety? 
Order Kirtley to report instantly with twenty men." 

Capt. James B. Kirtley came — a young, smooth-faced, daunt- 
less officer, tried in the front of fifty battles, a veteran and yet a 
boy. The men had ridden thirty miles that day, but what mattered 
it? Had the miles been sixty, the same unquestioned obedience 
would have been yielded, the same soldierly spirit manifested of 
daring and adventure. 

"Return to Sumapetla," Shelby said, "and find my wounded. 
Stay with them, wait for them, fight for them, get killed, if need 
be, for them, but whatever you do, bring or send them back to m^. 
I shall wait for you a day and a night." 



338 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO' 

A pale-faced man, with his eyes drooping and his form bent, 
rode up to Shelby. He plucked him by the sleeve and pleaded. 

*' General, let me go too. I did not think when I left them. I 
can fight. Try me. General. Tell Kirtley to take me. It is a lit- 
tle thing I am asking of you, but I have followed you for four 
years, and I think, small as it is, it will save me." 

All Shelby's face lit up with a pity and tenderness that was abso- 
lutely winning.' He grasped his poor, tried soldier's hand, and 
spoke to him low and softly: 

"Go, and come back again. I was harsh, I know, and over cruel, 
but between us two there is neither cloud nor shadow of feeling. I 
do forgive you from my soul." 

There were tears in the man's eyes as he road away, and a heart 
beneath his uniform that was worth a diadem. 

It was tea long miles to Sumapetla, and the night had fallen. 
The long, swinging trot that Kirtley struck would carry hira there 
in two hours at farthest, and if needs be, the trot would grow 
into a gallop. 

He rode along his ranks and spoke to his men: 

" Keep quiet, be ready, be loaded. You heard the orders. I 
shall obey them or be even beyond the need of the ambulance we 
have been sent back to succor." 

Sumapetla was reached in safety. It was a miserable squalid 
village, filled full of Indians and beggars and dogs. In the largest 
house the wounded men were found — not well cared for, but com- 
fortable from pain. Their attendant, a blacksmith, was busy with 
the broken ambulance. 

Kirtley threw forward picquets and set about seeking for supper. 
While active in its preparation a sudden volley came from the front 
— keen, dogged, vicious. From the roar of the guns Kirtly knew 
that his men had fired at close range and all together. It was a clear 
night, yet still quite dark in the mountains. Directly a picquet rode 
rapidly up, not the least excited yet very positive. 

" There is a large body in front of us and well armed. They 
tried a surprise and lost five. We did not think it well to charge, 
and I have come back for orders. Please say what they are quick, 
for the boys may need me before I can reach them again." 

This was the volunteer who had commanded the rear guard of 
the day's march. 

Skirmishing shots now broke out ominously. There were fifteen 
men in the village and five on outpost. 

"Mount, all," cried Kirtley, "and follow me." 

The relief took the road at a gallop. 

The space between the robbers and their prey was scarcely large 
enough for Kirtley to array his men upon. From all sides there 
came the steady roar of musketry, telling how complete the ambus- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAP OF THE WAR. 339 

cade, and how serviceable the guns. Some fifty paces in the rear of 
the outpost the road made a sudden turn, leaving at the apex of 
the acute angle a broken zig-zag piece of rock-work capable of 
much sturdy defense, and not flanked without a rush and a moment 
or two of desperate in-fighting that is rarely the choice of the guer- 
rillas. This Kirtley had noticed with the eye of a soldier and the 
quickness of a man who meant to do a soldier's duty first and a com- 
rade's duty afterward. Because the wounded men had to be saved 
was no reason why those who were unwounded should be sacrificed. 

He fell back to the rocky ledge facing the robbers. Word sent 
to the blacksmith in the village to hurry, to make rapid and zealous 
haste, for the danger was pressing and dire, got for an answer in 
return : 

"Captain Kirtley, I am doing my best. A Mexican's black- 
smith shop is an anvil without a hammer, a forge without a bel- 
lows, a wheel without its felloes ; and I have to make, instead of 
one thing, a dozen things. It will be two hours before the ambu- 
lance is mended," 

Very laconic and very true. Kirtley never thought a second 
time, during all the long two hours, of the smithy in the village, 
and the swart, patient smith who, within full sound of the strug- 
gling musketry, wrought and delved and listened now and then in 
the intervals of his toil to the rising and falling of the fight, laugh- 
ing, perhaps, low to himself, as his practiced ear caught the various 
volleys, and knew that neither backward nor forward did the 
Americns recede nor advance a stone's throw. 

The low reach of rock, holding fast to the roots of the trees that 
grew up from it, and bristling with rugged and stunted shrubs, 
transformed itself into a citadel. The road ran by it like an arm 
that encircles a waist. Where the elbow was the Americans stood 
at bay. They had dismounted and led their horses still further to 
the rear — far enough to be safe, yet near at hand. From the 
unknown it was impossible to tell what spectres might issue forth. 
The robbers held on. From the volume of fire their numbers were 
known as two hundred — desperate odds, but it was night, and the 
night is always in league with the weakest. 

Disposed among the rocks, about the roots and the trunks of the 
trees, the Americans fired in skirmishing order and at will. Three 
rapid and persistent times the rush of the guerrillas came as a great 
wave upon the little handful, a lurid wreath of light all along its 
front, and a noise that was appalling in the'darkness. Nothing so 
terrifies as the oscillation and the roar of a hurricane that is invis- 
ible. Hard by the road, Kirtley kept his grasp upon the rock. 
Nothing shook that — nothing shook the tension of its grim en- 
durance. 

The last volley beat full into the faces of all. A soldier fell for- 
ward into the darkness. 



340 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

" Wlio's hurt?" and the clear voice of Kirtley racg out with- 
out a tremor. 

" It's me, Jim; it's Walker. Hard hit in the shoulder; but thank 
God for the breech loader, a fellow can load and fire with one sound 
arm left." 

Bleeding through the few rags stuffed into the wound, and faint 
from much weakness and pain, Walker mounted again to his post 
and fought on till the struggle was ended. 

Time passed, but lengthily. Nine of the twenty were wounded, 
all slightly, however, save Walker — thanks to the darkness and the 
ledge that seemed planted there by a Providence that meant to 
succor steadfast courage and devotion. The ambulance was done 
and the wounded were placed therein. 

" It can travel but slowly in the night," said Kirtley, to William 
Fell, who had stood by his side through all the bitter battle, " and 
we must paralyze pursuit a little." 

" Paralyze it — how ?" 

"By a sudden blow, such as a prize fighter gives when he strikes 
below the belt. By a charge some good hundred paces in the midst 
of them." 

Fell answered laconically : 

" Desperate but reasonable. I have seen such things done. Will 
it take long ? " 

" Twenty minutes all told, and there will be but eleven of us. 
The nine who are wounded must go back." 

The horses were brought and mounted. Walker could scarcely 
sit in his saddle. As he rode to the rear, two of his comrades sup- 
ported him. The parting was ominous — the living, perhaps, taking 
leave of the dead. 

Far into the night and the unknown the desperate venture held 
its way. Two deep the handful darted out from behind the barri- 
cade, tiring at the invisible. Specter answered specter, and only 
the ringing of the revolvers was real. The impetus of the charge 
was such that the line of the robbers' fire was passed before, reined 
up and countermarching, the forlorn hope could recede as a wave 
that carried the undertow. The reckless gallop bore its planted 
fruit. Back through the pass unharmed the men rode, and on by 
the ledge, and into Sumapetla. No pursuit came after. The tire 
of the guerrillas ceased ere the charge had been spent, and when 
the morning came there was the camp, and a thousand blessings for 
the bold young leader who had held his own so well, and kept his 
faith as he had kept the fort on its perch among the mountains. 

It was a large city set upon a hill that loomed up through the 
mists of the evening — a city seen from afar and musical with many 
vesper bells. Peace stood in the ranks of the sentinel corn, and 
fed with the cattle that browsed by the streams in the meadows. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR. 341 

Peace came on the wings of the twilight and peopled the grasses 
with songs that soothed, and many toned voices that made for the 
earth a symphony. Days of short parade and longer merry-mak- 
ing dawned for the happy soldiery. The sweet, unbroken south wind 
brought no dust of battle from the palms and the orange blossoms 
by the sea. Couriers came and went, and told of peace throughout 
the realm ; of robber bands surrendering to the law ; of railroads 
pkinned and parks adorned ; of colonists arriving and foreign ships 
in all the ports ; of roads made safe for travel, and public virtue 
pla' ed at premium in the marketlists ; of prophecies that brightened 
all the future, and to the Empire promised an Augustan age. The 
night and the sky were at peace as the city grew larger and larger 
on its hill, and a silence came to the ranks of the Expedition that 
was not broken until the camp became a bivouac with the goddess 
of plenty to make men sing of fealty and obeisance. 

It was the City of Queretaro. 

Yonder ruined convent, its gateway crumbling to decay, its 
fountains strewn with bits of broken shrubs and flowers, held the 
sleeping Emperor the night the traitor Lopez surrendered all to an 
Indian vengeance and compassion. When that Emperor awoke he 
had been dreaming. Was it of Miramar and "poor Carlota?" 

The convent was at peace then, and the fountains were all at 
play. Two bearded Zouaves stood in its open door, looking out 
curiously upon the serried ranks of the Americans as they rode 
slowly by. 

Yonder, on the left where a hill arises, the capture was made; 
yonder the Austrian cried out in the agony of this last desertion 
and betrayal: 

" Is there then no bullet for me?" 

Later, when the bullets found his heart, they found an image 
there that entered with his spirit into heaven — the image of "Poor 
Carlota." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Quite a large concentration of Americans had taken place in 
the City of Mexico. Many of these were penniless ; all of them 
were soldiers. As long as they believed in the luck, or the fortune, 
or the good destiny of Shelby — and that, being a born soldier, the 
Empire must needs see and recognize those qualities which even 
his enemies had described as magnificent — they were content to 
wait for Shelby's arrival, living no man knew how, hungry always, 
sometimes sad, frequently in want of a roll or a bed — but turning 
ever their faces fair to the sunrise, saying, it may be a little 
reproachfully, to the sun: " What hast thou in store for us this day, 
oh! King?" 

Maximilian was like a man who had a desperate race before 
him, and who had started out to win it. The pace in the beginning 
was therefore terrible. So firm was the stride, so tense were the 
muscles, so far in the rear were all competitiors, that opposition had 
well-nigh abandoned the contest and resistance had become so 
enfeebled as to be almost an absolute mockery. 

In the noonday of the struggle a halt was had. There were so 
many sweet and odorous flowers, so many nights that were almost 
divine, so much of shade and luxury and ease, so much of music 
by the wayside, and so many hands that were held out to him for 
the grasping, that the young Austrian, schooled in the luxuries of 
literature and the pursuits of science, sat himself down just when 
the need was sorest and smoked and dreamed and planned and 
wrote and— died. 

Maximilian was never a soldier. Perhaps he was no statesman 
as well. Most certainly all the elements of a politician were want- 
ing in his character, which was singularly sweet, trusting and affec- 
tionate. To sign a death warrant gave him nights of solitude and 
remorse. Alone with his confessor he would beseech in prayer the 
merciful God to show to him that mercy he had denied to others. 
On the eve of an execution he had been known to flee from his cap- 
ital as if pursued by some horrible nightmare. He could not kill, 
when, to reign as a foreigner, it was necessary to kill, as said Will- 
iam the Conqueror, until the balance is about even between those 
who came over with you and those whom you found upon your 
arrival . 

The Emperor had given shelter to some honored and august 
Americans. Commodore M. F. JMaury, who had preceded the 
Expedition, and who had brought his great fame and his transcend- 

343 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 343 

ent abilities to the support of the Empire, had been made the 
Imperial Commissioner of Immigration. Entering at once upon an 
energetic discharge of his duties, he had secured a large and valua- 
ble grant of land near the city of Cordova, which, even as early as 
September, 1865, was being rapidly surveyed and opened up for 
civilization. Agents of colonization had been sent to the United 
States, and reports were constantly being received of their cordial 
and sometimes enthusiastic reception by the people, from JSTew 
Orleans to Dubuque, Iowa, and from New York westward to San 
Antonio, Texas. There was a world of people ready to emigrate. 
One in five of all the thousands would have been a swart, strapping 
fellow, fit for any service but best for the service of a soldier. 

Therefore, when these things were told to Shelby, riding down 
from the highlands about Queretero to the lowlands about Mexico, 
he rubbed his hands as one who feels a steady flame by the bivouac- 
fire of a winter's night, and spoke out gleefully to Langhorne • 

"We can get forty thousand and take our pick. Young men 
for war, and only young men emigrate. This Commodore Maury 
seems to sail as well upon the land as upon the water. It appears 
to me that we shall soon see the sky again. What do you say, 
Captain?" 

Langhorne answered him laconically: 

"The French are not friendly — that is to say, they want no sol- 
diers from among us. You will not be permitted to recruit even so 
much as a front and a rear rank; and if this is what you mean by 
seeing the sky, then the sky is as far away as ever." 

It was not long before the sequel proved which of the two was 
right. 

Gen. John B. Magruder, who had also preceded the Expedition, 
and who had known Marshal Bazaine well in the Crimea, was com- 
missioned Surveyor-General of the Empire through French influ- 
ence, and assigned to duty with Commodore Maury, He had 
spoken twice to the Marshal in behalf of Shelby, and spoken 
frankly and boldly at that. He got in reply what Jeanningros had 
got and Depreuil and Douay and all of them. He got this sen- 
tentious order: 

"Bid Shelby march immediately to Mexico." 

General Preston, who through much peril and imminent risk by 
night and day had penetrated to the Capital, even from Piedras 
Negras, had begged and pleaded for permission to return with such 
authority vouchsafed to Shelby as would enable him to recruit 
his corps. Preston fared like the rest. For answer he also got 
the order: 

"Bid Shelby march immediately to Mexico " 

And so he marched on into the glorious land between Queretaro 
and the Capital, and ipto the glorious weather, no guerrillas now to 



344 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

keep watch against, no robbers anywhere about the hills or the 
fords. The Freueh were everywhere in the sunshine. Their 
picquets were upon all the roads. The villages contained their can- 
tonments. There was peace and prosperity and a great rest among 
all the people. The women laughed in the glad land, and the voices 
of many children told of peaceful days and of the fatness of the 
field and the vine — of the streams that ran to the sea, and uplands 
green with leaf or gray with ripening grain. 

Maybe Fate rests its head upon its two hands at times, and thinks 
of what little things it shall employ to make or mar a character — 
save or lose a life— banish beyond the light or enter into and possess 
forevermore a Paradise. 

The march was running by meadow and river, and the swelling 
of billowy wheat, and great groves of orange trees wherein the sun- 
shine hid itself at noon with the breeze and the mocking birds. 

It was far into the evening that John Thrailkill sat by the fire of 
his mess, smoking and telling brave stories of the brave days that 
were dead. Others were grouped about in dreaming indolence or 
silent fancy — thinking, it may be, of the northern land with its 
pines and firs — of great rolling waves of prairie and plain, of forests 
where cabins were and white-haired children all at play. 

Thrailkill was a guerrilla who never slept — that is to say who 
never knew the length or breadth of a bed from Sumter to Appo- 
mattox. Some woman in Platte county had made him a little black 
flag, under which he fought. This, worked in the crown of his 
hat, satisfied him with his loyalty to his lady-love. In addition to 
all this, he was one among the best pistol shots in a command where 
all were excellent. 

Perhaps neither before nor since the circumstance here related 
has anything so quaint in recklessness or bravado been recorded this 
side of the Crusades. Thrailkill talked much, but then he had 
fought much, and fighting men love to talk now and then. Some 
border story of broil or battle, wherein, at desperate odds, he had 
done a desperate deed, came uppermost as the night deepened, and 
the quaint and scarred guerrilla was overgenerous in the share he 
took of the killing and the plunder. 

A comrade by his side, Anthony West, doubted the story and 
ridiculed its narration. Thrailkill w^as not swift to anger for one so 
thoroughly reckless, but on this night he arose, every hair in his 
bushy beard bristling. 

" You disbelieve me, it seems," he said, bending over the other 
until he could look into his eyes, " and for the skeptic there is only 
the logic of a blow. Is this real, and this?" and Thrailkill smote 
West twice in the face with his open hand — once on either cheek. 
No insult could be more studied, open and unpardonable. 

Comrades interfered instantly, or there would have been blood 
shed in the heart of the camp and by the flames of the bivouac fire. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 345 

Each was very cool— each knew what the morrow would bring 
forth, without a miracle. 

The camp was within easy reach of a town that was more of a vil- 
lage than a town. It had a church and a priest, and a regular Don 
of an Alcalde who owned leagues of arable land and two hundred 
game cocks besides. For Shelby's especial amusement a huge main 
was organized and a general invitation given to all who desired to 
attend. 

The contest was to begin at noon. Before the sun had risen 
Capt. James H. Gillette came to Thrailkill, who was wrapped up in 
his blankets, and said to him: 
" I have a message for you." 
" It is not long, I hope." 
" Not very long, but very plain." 

" Yes, yes, they are all alike. I have seen such before. Wait 
for me a few minutes." 

Thrailkill found Isaac Berry, and Berry in turn soon found 
Gillette. 

The note was a challenge, brief and peremptory. Some confer- 
ences followed, and the terms were agreed upon. These were sav- 
age enough for an Indian. Colt's pistols, dragoon size, were the 
weapons, but only one of them was to be loaded. The other, empty 
in every chamber, was to be placed alongside the loaded one. Then 
a blanket was to cover both, leaving the butt of each exposed. He 
who won the toss was to make the first selection and Thrailkill won. 
The loaded and the unloaded pistol lay hidden beneath the blanket, 
the two handles so nearly alike that there was noappreciable differ- 
ence. Thrailkill walked up to the tent whistling a tune. West 
stood behind him, watching with a face that was set as a flint. The 
first drew, cast his eyes along the cylinder, saw that it was loaded, 
and smiled. The last drew— every chamber was empty. Death 
was his portion as absolutely and as certainly as if death already 
stood by his side. Yet he made no sign other than to look up to 
the sky. Was it to be his last look? 

The terms were ferocious, yet neither second had protested 
against them. It seemed as if one man was to murder another 
because one had been lucky in the toss of a silver dollar. As the 
case stood, Thrailkill had the right to fire six shots at West before 
West had the right to grasp even so much as a loaded pistol, and 
Thrailkill was known for his deadly skill throughout the ranks of 
the whole Expedition. 

The two were to meet just at sunset, and the great cock main 
was at noon. To this each principal went, and each second, and 
before the main was over the life of a man stood as absolutely upon 
the prowess of a bird as the spring and its leaves upon the rain and 
the sunshine. 



346 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

And thus it came about: 

In Mexico cocK-fighting is a national recreation, perhaps it is a 
national blessing as well. Men engage in it when they would be 
robbing else, and waylaying couriers bearing specie, and haunting 
the mountain gorges until the heavy trains of merchandise entered 
slowly in to be swallowed up. 

The priests fight there, and the fatter the padre the finer his 
chicken. From the prayer-book to the pit is an easy transition, and 
no matter the axes so only the odds are in favor of the church. It is 
upon the Sundays that all the pitched battles begin. After the 
matin bells the matches. When it is vespers, for some there has 
been a stricken and for some a victorious field. No matter again — for 
all there is absolution. 

The Alcalde of the town of Linares was a jolly, good-conditioned 
Mexican, who knew a bit of English, picked up in California, and 
who liked the Americans but for two things — their hard drinking 
and their hard swearing. Finding any ignorant of these accom- 
plishments, there flowed never any more for them a stream of friend- 
ship from the Alcalde's fountain. It became dry as suddenly as a 
spring in the desert. 

Shelby won his heart by sending him a case of elegant cognac — 
a present from Douay — and therefore was the main improvised 
which was to begin at noon. 

The pit was a great circle in the midst of a series of seats that 
arose the one above the other. Over the entrance, which was a 
gateway opening like the lids of a book, was a chair of state, an 
official seat occupied by the Alcalde. Beside him sat a bugler in 
uniform. At the beginning and the end of a battle this bugler, 
watching the gestures of the Alcalde, blew triumphant or penitential 
strains acordingly as the Alcalde's favorite lost or won. As the 
main progressed the notes of gladness outnumbered those of sorrow. 

A born cavalryman is always suspicious. He looks askance at 
the woods, the fences, the ponds, the morning fogs, the road that 
forks and crosses, and the road that runs into the 'rear of a halted 
column, or into either flank at rest in bivouac. It tries one's nerves 
so to fumble at uncertain girths in the darkness, a rain of bullets 
pouring down at the outposts and no shelter anywhere for a long 
week's marching. 

And never at any time did Shelby put aught of faith in Mexican 
friendship, or aught of trust in Mexican welcome and politeness. 
His guard was perpetual, and his intercourse like his marching, was 
always in skirmishing order. Hence one-half the forces of the 
expedition were required to remain in camp under arms, pre- 
pared for any emergency, while the other half, free of restraint, 
could accept the Alcalde's invitation or not as they saw fit. The 
most of them attended. With the crowd went Thrailkill and West, 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 347 

Gillette and Berry. All the village was there. The pit had no 
caste. Benevolent priests mingled with their congregations and 
bet their pesos on their favorites. Lords of many herds and acres, 
and mighty men of the country round about, the Dons of the haci- 
endas pulled off their hats to the peons, and staked their gold against 
the greasy silver palm to palm. Fair senoritas shot furtive glances 
along the ranks of the soldiers — glances that lingered long upon the 
Saxon outline of their faces and retreated only when to the light of 
curiosity there had been added that of unmistakable admiration. 

The bugle sounded and the weighing began. The sport was new 
to many of the spectators — to a few it was a sealed book. Twenty- 
five cocks were matched — all magnificent birds, not so large as those 
fought in America but as pure in 'game and as rich in plumage. 
There, too, the fighting is more deadly, that is to say, it is more 
rapid and fatal. The heels used have been almost thrown aside 
here. In the north and west absolutely, in New Orleans very 
nearly so. These heels, wrought of the most perfect steel and 
curved like a scimitar, have an edge almost exquisite in its keen- 
ness. They cut asunder like a sword-blade. Failing in instant 
death, they inflict mortal wounds. Before there is mutilation there 
is murder. 

To the savage reality of combat there was added the atoning 
insincerities of music. These diverted the drama of its premedita- 
tion, and gave to it an air of surprise that, in the light of an accom- 
modating conscience, passed unchallenged for innocence. In 
Mexico the natives rarely ask questions — the strangers never. 

Shelby seated himself by the side of the Alcalde, the first five or 
six notes of a charge were sounded and the battle began. There- 
after with varying fortunes it ebbed and flowed through all the long 
afternoon. Aroused into instant championship, the Americans 
espoused the side of this or that bird, and lost or won as the fates 
decreed. There was but scant gold among them, all counted, but 
twenty dollars or twenty thousand, it would have been the same. A 
nation of born gamblers, it needed not a cock fight to bring all the 
old national traits uppermost. A dozen or more were on the eve of 
wagering their carbines and revolvers, when a sign from Shelby 
checked the unsoldierly impulse and brought them back instantly to 
a realization of duty. 

Thrailkill had lost heavily — that is to say every dollar he owned on 
earth. West had won without cessation — won in spite of his judg- 
ment, which was often adverse to the wagers he laid. In this, 
maybe, Fate was but flattering him. Of what use would all his 
winnings be after the sunset ? 

It was the eighteenth battle, and a magnificent cock was 
brought forth who had the crest of an eagle and the eye of a basilisk. 
More sonorous than the bugle, his voice had blended war and mel- 



348 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

ody in it. The glossy ebony of his plumage needed only the sun- 
light to make it a mirror where courage might have arrayed itself. 
In an instant he was everybody's favorite — in his favor all the odds 
were laid. Some few clustered about his antagonist— among them a 
sturdy old priest who did what he could to stem the tide rising in 
favor of the bird of the beautiful plumage. 

Infatuated like the rest, Thrailkill would have staked a crown 
upon the combat ; he did not have even so much as one real. The 
man was miserable. Once he walked to the door and looked out. 
If at that time he had gone forth, the life of West would have gone 
with him, but he did not go. As he returned he met Gillette, who 
spoke to him : 

" You do not bet, and the battle is about to begin." 
" I do not bet because I have not won. The pitcher that goes 
eternally to a well is certain to be broken at last." 
" And yet you are fortunate." 

Thrailkill shrugged his shoulders and looked at his watch. It 
wanted an hour yet of the sunset. The tempter still tempted him. 
" You have no money, then. Would you like to borrow ? " 
"No." 

Gilette mused awhile. They were tieing on the last blades, and 
the old priest had cried out: 

" A doubloon to a doubloon against the black cock ! " 
Thrailkill's eyes glistened. Gillette took him by the arm. He 
spoke rapidly, but so low and distinct that every word was a thrust: 
" You do not want to kill West — the terms are murderous — you 
have been soldiers together — you can take the priest's bet — here is 
the money. But," he looked him fair in the face, " if you win you 
pay me — if you lose I have absolute disposal of your fire." 

"Ah ! " and the guerrilla straightened himself up all of a sud- 
den," what would you do with my fire? " 

" Keep your hands clean from innocent blood, John Thrailkill. 
Is not that enough?" 

The money was accepted, the wager with the priest was laid, and 
the battle began. When it was over the beautiful black cock lay 
dead on the sands of the arena, slain by the sweep of one terrific 
blow, while over him, in pitiless defiance, his antagonist, dun in 
plumage and ragged in crest and feather, stood a victor, conscious 
of his triumph and his prowess. 

The sun was setting, and two men stood face to face in the glow 
of the crimson sky. On either flank of them a second took his 
place, a look of sorrow on the bold bronzed face of Berry, the light 
of anticipation in the watchful eyes of the calm Gillette. Well 
kept, indeed, had been the secret of the tragedy. The group who 
stood alone on the golden edge of the evening were all who knew 
the ways and the means of the work before them. West took his 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 349 

place as a man who had shaken hands with life and knew how to 
die. Thrailkill had never been merciful, and this day of all days 
were the chances dead against a moment of pity or forgiveness. 

The ground was a little patch of grass beside a stream, having 
trees in the rear of it, and trees over beyond the reach of the waters 
running musically to the sea. In the distance there were houses 
from which peaceful smoke ascended. Through the haze of the 
gathering twilight the sound of bells came from the homeward-plod- 
ding herds, and from the fields the happy voices of the reapers. 

West stood full front to his adversary — certain of death. He 
expected nothing beyond a quick and speedy bullet, one which 
would kill without inflicting needless pain. 

The word was given. Thrailkill threw his pistol out, covered 
his antagonist once fairly, looked once into his eyes, and saw that 
they did not quail, and then, with a motion as instantaneous as it 
was unexpected, lifted it up overhead and fired in the air. 

Gillette had won his wager. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The city of all men's hopes and fears and aspirations ; the city 
of the swart cavaliers of Cortez and the naked warriors of Monte- 
zuma, who rushed with bare bosom on lance and sword-blade; the 
city under the shadow of the old-world Huasco, that volcano, it 
may be, that was in its youth when Ararat bore aloft the ark as a 
propitiation to the God alike of the rainbow and the deluge, and 
that when the floods subsided sent its lava waves to the Pacific 
Ocean; the city which had seen the cold glitter of Northern steel 
flash along the broken way of Conteras, and wind itself up, striped 
thick with blood, into the heart of Chepultepec; the city filled now 
with Austrians and Belgians and Frenchmen and an Emperor 
newly crowned with manhood and valor, and an Empress, royal 
with an imperial youth and beauty — the city of Mexico was reached 
at last. 

For many the long march was about to end, for others to begin 
again — longer, drearier, sterner than any march ever yet taken for 
king or country — the march down into the Valley of the Shadow, 
and over beyond the River and into the unknown and eternal. 

Marshal Bazaine was a soldier who had seen service in Algeria, 
in the Crimea, in Italy — especially at Magenta — and he had won the 
baton at last in Mexico, that baton the First Napoleon declared 
might be in the knapsack of every soldier. The character of the 
man was a study some student of history may love to stumble upon 
in the future. Past fifty, white-haired where there was hair, bald 
over the forehead as one sees all Frenchmen who have served in 
Algeria, he made a fine figure on horseback, because from the waist 
up his body was long, lithe and perfectly trained; but not such a 
fine figure on foot, because the proportion was illy preserved between 
the two extremities. He was ambitious, brave to utter recklessness, 
crafty, yet outspoken and frank, a savage aristocrat who had mar- 
ried a fair-faced Spaniard and a million, merciless in discipline, 
beloved of his troops, adored by his miltiary family, a gambler who 
had been known to win a thousand ounces on a single card, a specu- 
lator and the owner of ships, a husband whom even the French 
called true, a father and a judge who, after he had caressed his 
infant, voted death at the court-martial so often that one officer began 
to say to another: 

•'He shoots them all." 

Bazaine was a skillful soldier. As long as it was war with 
Juarez, he kept Juarez starving and running — sometimes across the 
Rio Grande into Texas, where the Federals fed him, and sometimes 

350 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR. 351 

in the mountains about El Paso, never despondent, it is true, yet 
never vs^ell-filled in either commissariat or cartridge-box. After the 
visit of General Castelneau, an aid-de-camp of Napoleon, and the 
reception of positive orders of evacuation, the Marshal let the Lib- 
erals have pretty much their own way, so that they neither injured 
nor interrupted the French soldiers coming and going about the 
country at will. As the French waves receded the waves of the 
Juaristas advanced. Bazaine sold them cannon and muskets and 
much ammunition, it is said, and even siege guns with which to bat- 
ter down the very walls of Maximilian's palace itself. Those who 
have accused him of this have slandered and abused the man. He 
may have known much of many things, of ingratitude not one 
heart-throb. Not his the aggravation of evacuation, the sudden 
rending asunder of the whole frame-work of Imperial society, the 
great fear that fell upon all, the patriotic uprisings that had infec- 
tion and jubilee in them, the massacre of Mexicans who had favored 
the Austrian, the breaking up of all schemes for emigration and 
colonization, and the ending of a day that was to bring the cold, 
long night of Queretaro. 

Rudolph, Emperor of Germany, who was born in 1218, and who 
was the son of Albert IV. , Count of Hapsburg, was the founder of 
that family to which Maximilian belonged. In 1282 Rudolph 
placed his son Albert on the throne of Austria, and thus begins the 
history of that house which has swayed the destinies of a large por- 
tion of Europe for nearly eight hundred years, a house which, 
through many terrible struggles, has gained and lost and fought on 
and ruled on, sometimes wisely and sometimes not, yet ever ruling 
in the name of divine right and of the House of Hapsburg. 

Through the force of marriage, purchase and inheritance, the 
State of Austria grew in extent beyond that of any other in the 
German Empire. In 1359 Rudolph IV. assumed the title of Arch- 
duke Palatine, and in 1363 his reign was made notorious by the val- 
uable acquisition of the Tyrol. This was the commencement of the 
history of the Archdukes, who were thereafter assigned to the high 
position of Emperor, the first taken from among them being Alfred 
II., who was chosen in 1438. The marriage of the bold, unscrupu- 
lous and ambitious Maximilian I., at the age of eighteen, to Mary, 
daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1477, added to 
Austria's territorial claim largely, and embraced Flanders, Franche 
Comte and all the Low Countries. In 1521 Ferdinand I. married 
Ann, sister of Louis, King of Hungary and Bohemia, who waskilled 
at the battle of Mohaez, in 1526, his empire being absorbed and 
incorporated with Austria. Upon the events of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, Charles V. left an immortal impress, and the blood of this 
great Emperor was in the veins of Maximilian of Mexico. 

In 1618 Europe, alarmed at the increasing territorial aggrandize- 
ment of Austria, and torn by. feuds between Protestants and Catho- 



352 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO J 

lies, saw the commencement of the thirty years' war. It terminated 
in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which accomplished the inde- 
pendence of the German States. In 1713 Austria gained the Italian 
provinces by the treaty of Utrecht, and in 1726, the last male of the 
House of Hapsbiirg, Charles II., died, the succession falling upon 
his daughter, Maria Theresa. She was succeeded by her son, 
Joseph II., and in 1792, at the age of twenty -two, Francis II. suc- 
ceeded his father, Leopold II., and became Emperor of Germany, 
King of Bohemia, Hungaria, etc. His reign was unusually stormy, 
and in three campaigns against the French he lost much of his terri- 
tory and was forced into the unfortunate treaty of Presburg. In 
1804 he assumed the title of Francis I., Emperor of Austria, and in 
1806 yielded up that of Emperor of Germany. Thus, through an 
unbroken line, male and female, did the House of Hapsburg hold 
the title of Emperor of Germany from 1437 to 1806. Maria Louisa, 
the daughter of this Francis, was married to the great Napoleon in 
1810, and in 1813 her father was in arms against France, and in 
the alliance with Russia, Prussia and England. In 1815 he had 
regained much of his lost territory, and had succeeded in cementing 
more firmly than ever the contending elements of the Austrian empire. 

Francis I. died in 1835, leaving the throne to his son Ferdinand 
I., who, in consequence of the political revolution of 1848, the 
fatigue of state affairs, and a wretched condition of health, abdicated 
in the same year, in favor of his brother. Archduke Francis Charles, 
who, on the same day, transferred his right to the throne to his 
eldest son, the present Emperor, who was declared of age at eight- 
een. Hungary refused to recognize the new monarch, and consti- 
tuted a republic under Kossuth, April 14, 1849. Bloody and 
short-lived, the republic was conquered and crushed under the feet 
of the Cossack and the Croat. 

And in such guise is this history given of one who, inheriting 
many of the splendid virtues of his race, was to inherit some of its 
sorrows and tragedies as well. 

Ferdinand Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was born in the 
palace of Schonbrun, near Vienna, on the 10th day of July, a. d. 
1832. He was the second son of Francis Charles, Archduke of Aus- 
tria, and of the Archduchess Frederica Sophia. His eldest brother 
was Francis Joseph I., the present Emperor of the Austrian Empire. 
Two younger brothers embraced the family — and among the whole 
there was a tenderness and affection so true and so rare in statecraft 
that in remarking it to the mother of the princes. Marshal McMahon 
is reported to have said: 

" Madam, these are young men such as you seldom see, and 
princes such as you never see." 

In height Maximilian was six feet two inches. His eyes were blue 
and penetrating, a little sad at times, and often introspective. Per- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR, 353 

baps never in all his life had there ever come to them a look of craft 
or cruelty. His forehead was broad and high, prominent where 
ideality should abound, wanting a little in firmness, if phrenology 
is true, yet compact enough and well enough proportioned to indi- 
cate resources in reserve and abilities latent and easily aroused. To 
a large mouth was given the Hapsburg lip, that thick, protruding, 
■semi-cleft under lip, too heavy for beauty, too immobile for features 
that, under the iron destiny that ruled the hour, should have sug- 
.gested CaBsar or Napoleon. A great yellow beard fell in a wave to 
his waist. At times this was parted at the chin, and descended in 
itwo separate streams, as it were, silkier, glossier, heavier than any 
yellow beard of any yellow-haired Hun or Hungarian that had fol- 
lowed him from the Rhine and the Danube. 

He said pleasant and courtly things in German, in English, Hun- 
garian, Slavonic, French, Italian and Spanish. In natural kindness 
of temper, and in elegance and refinement of deportment, he sur- 
passed all who surrounded him and all with whom he came in con- 
tact. Noblemen of great learning and cosmopolitan reputation were 
his teachers. Prince Esteraze taught him the Hungarian language; 
'Count de Schnyder taught him mathematics; Thomas Zerman 
■taught him naval tactics and the Italian language. A splendid 
horseman, he excelled also in athletic sports. With the broadsword 
or the rapierfew men could break down his guard or touch him with 
the steel's point. 

At the age of sixteen he visited Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, 
Madeira and Africa. He was a poet who wrote sonnets that were 
^set to music, a botanist, a book-maker, the captain of a frigate, an 
^admiral. He did not love to see men die. All his nature was 
itenderly human. He loved flowers and music and statuary and 
the repose of the home circle and the fireside. He had a palace 
•called Miramar, which was a paradise. Here the messengers found 
him when they came bearing in their hands the crown of Mexico — 
a gentle, lovable prince — adored by the Italians over whom he had 
ruled, the friend of the Third Napoleon, a possible heir to the 
throne of Austria, a chivalrous, elegant, polished gentleman. 

How he died the world knows — betrayed, butchered, shot by a 
■dead wall, thinking of Carlotta, 

France never thoroughly understood the war between the States. 
Up to the evacuation of Richmond by Lee, Louis Napoleon 
^believed religiously in the success of the Southern Confederacy. 
An alliance offensive and defensive with President Davis was 
^proposed to him by Minister Slidell, an alliance which guaranteed 
;to him the absolute possession of Mexico and the undisturbed 
erection of an empire within its borders. For this he was asked to 
raise the blockade at Charleston and New Orleans, and furnish for 
'Offensive operations a corps of 75,000 French soldiers. He declined 



3o4 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

the alliance because he believed it unnecessary. Of what use to 
hasten a result, hear gued, which in the end would be inevitable? 

After Appomattox Court House he awoke to something like a 
realization of the drama in which he was the chief actor. The 
French nation clamored against the occupation. Its cost was enor- 
mous in blood and treasure. America, sullen and vicious, and victor 
in a gigantic war, looked across the Rio Grande with her hand upon 
her sword. Diplomacy could do nothing against a million of men in 
arms. It is probable that in this supreme moment Mr. Seward 
revenged on France the degradation forced upon him by the Trent 
affair, and used language so plain to the Imperial minister that all 
ideas of further foothold or aggrandizement in the new world were 
abandoned at once and for ever. 

When Shelby arrived in Mexico the situation was peculiar. 
Ostensibly Emperor, Maximilian had scarcely anymore real author- 
ity than the Grand Chamberlain of his household. Bazaine was the 
military autocrat. The mints, the mines and the custom houses 
were in his possession. Plis soldiers occupied all the ports where 
exporting and importing were done. Divided first into military 
departments, and next into civil departments, a French general, or 
colonel, or officer of the line of some grade, commanded each of the 
first, and an Imperial Mexican of some kind, generally half Juar- 
ista and half robber, commanded each of the last. For their allies 
the French had a most supreme and sovereign contempt — a contempt 
as natural as it was undisguised. Conflicts, therefore, necessarily 
occurred. Civil law, even in sections where civil law might have 
been made beneficial, rarely ever lifted its head above the barricade 
of bayonets, and its officers— finding the French supreme in every- 
thing, especially in their contempt — surrendered whatever of dig- 
nity or official appreciation belonged to them, and without resign- 
ing or resisting, were content to plunder their friends or traffic with 
the enemy. 

Perhaps France had a reason or two for dealing thus harshly 
with the civil administration of affairs. Maximilian was one of 
the most unsuspecting and confiding of men. He actually believed 
in Mexican faith and devotion — in such things as Mexican patriot- 
ism and love of peace and order. He would listen to their prom- 
ises and become enthusiastic; to their plans and grow convinced; 
to their oaths and their pledges, and take no thought for to-morrow, 
when the oaths were to become false and the pledges violated. 
France wished to arouse him from his unnatural dream of trusting 
goodness and gentleness, and put in lieu of the fatal narcotic more 
of iron and blood. 

France had indeed scattered lives freely in Mexico. At first 
England and Spain had joined with France in an invasion for cer- 
tain feasible and specified purposes, none of which purposes, how- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 355 

ever, were to establish an empire, enthrone a foreign prince, sup- 
port him by a foreign army, seize possession of the whole Mexican 
country, govern it as part or the royal possessions, make of it in 
time, probably, a great menace, but certain — whatever the future 
might be — to ruffle the feathers pretty roughly upon that winged 
relation of the great American eagle, the Monroe Doctrine. 

Before the occupation, however, Mexico was divided into two 
parties— that of the Liberals, led by Juarez, and that of the church, 
its political management in the hands of the Archbishop, its mili- 
tary management in the hands of Miramon. Comonfort, an Uto- 
pian dreamer and Socialist, yet a liberal for all that, renounced the 
presidency in 1858. Thereupon the Capital of the nation was seized 
by the church party, Miramon at its head, and much wrong was 
done to foreigners, so much wrong, indeed, that from it the alli- 
ance sprung that was to sow all over the country a terrible crop of 
armed men. 

In 1861 England, France and Spain united to demand from 
Mexico the payment of all claims owed by her, and to demand still 
further and stronger some absolute guarantee against future murders 
and spoliations. 

England's demands were based upon the assertion that on the 
16th day of November, 1860, Miramon unlawfully took from Eng- 
lish residents one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. This 
money was in the house of the British Legation, The house was 
attacked, stoned, fired into, some of its domestics killed and 
wounded, and the Minister himself saved with difficulty. After- 
ward, at Tacubaya, an outlying village of the capital, seventy-three 
Englishmen were brutally murdered — shot at midnight in a ditch, 
and to appease, it is thought, a moment of savage superstition and 
cruelty. To this day it is not known even in Mexico why Miramon 
gave his consent to this horrid butchery. In other portions of the 
country, and indeed in every portion of it where there were English- 
men, they were insulted with impunity, robbed of their possessions, 
often imprisoned, sometimes murdered, and frequently driven forth 
penniless from among their tormentors, 

A treaty had been made in Paris, in 1859, between Spain and the 
Church party, which provided for the payment of the Spanish 
claims. This treaty was annulled when Juarez came into power, 
and the refusal was peremptory to pay a single dollar to Spain. The 
somewhat novel declaration was also made that the Republic of 
Mexico owed to its own citizens about as much as it could pay, and 
that when discriminations had to be made they should be made 
against the foreigner. Spain became furiously indignant, and joined 
in with England in the alliance, 

France had also her grievances. A Swiss banker named Jecker, 
who had been living in Mexico a few years prior to the Expedition of 



356 SHELBY'S EXPEDrXlON TO MEXICO; 

the three great powers, had made a fortune high up among the mill- 
ions, Miramon looked upon Jecker with awe and admiration, and 
from friends the two men soon became to be partners. A decree 
was issued by Miramon on the 29th of October, 1859, providing for 
the issuance of three millions pounds sterling in bonds. These 
bonds were to be taken for taxes and import duties, were to bear 
six per cent, interest, and were to have the interest paid for fiv« 
years by the house of Jecker. As this was considerably above the 
average life of the average Mexican Government, JVliramon felt safe 
in taking no thought of the interest after Jecker had paid for the 
first five years. Certain regulations also provided that the holders 
of these bonds might transfer them and receive in their stead 
Jecker's bonds, paying a certain percentage for the privilege c f the 
transfer. Jecker was to issue the bonds and to receive five per cent, 
on the issue. He did not, however, consummate the arrangement 
as the provisions of the decree required, and at his own suggestion 
the contract was modified. At last the result narrowed itself down 
to this: the Church part stood bound for three millions seven hun- 
dred and twenty thousand pounds sterling, and Jecker found him- 
self in a position where it was impossible to comply with his con- 
tract. In May, 1863, his house suspended payment. His creditors 
got the bonds, the Church party gave place to the Liberal party, 
and then a general repudiation came. This party refused to 
acknowledge any debt based upon the Miramon Jecker transaction, 
just as it had refused to carry out the stipulations of a sovereign 
treaty made with Spain. 

The most of Jecker's creditors were Frenchmen, and France- 
resolved to collect not only this debt, but claims to the amount of 
twelve millions of dollars besides. Failing to obtain a peaceful set- 
tlement, late in the year 1860, the French Minister left the Capital 
after this significant speech : 

" If there shall be a war between us it shall be a war of destruc- 
tion." 

And it was. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The three complaining powers — England, France and Spain — 
met in London, October, 1861, and agreed that each should send upon 
the Expedition an equal naval force, and that the number of troops 
to be furnished by each should be regulated accordin ho to the num 
ber of subjects -which the respective powers had in Mexico. It was 
farther expressed and stipulated that the intervention should only 
be for the purpose of enforcing the payment of the claims assumed 
to be due, and that in no particular was any movement to be made 
looking to an occupation of the country. England, however, was 
diss.itisflad with a portion of France's claim, and Spain coincided 
with England. Notwithstanding this fact, however, a joint fleet 
was sent to Vera Cruz, which reached ils destination January 6, 
1862. On the 7th, six thousand three hundred Spanish, two thou- 
sand eight hundred French, and eight hundred English troops were 
disembarked, and by a treaty made with Juarez at Soledad, and 
signed February 19, 1863, these troops were permitted to leave the 
fever marshes about Vera Cruz, and march to the glorious regions 
about Orizava. 

Orizava, on the National Road midway between Cordova and 
Puebla, is a city whose climate and whose surroundings might recall 
to any mind the Garden of Eden. Its skies are always blue, its air 
is always balmy, its women are always beautiful, its fruit is always 
ripe, and its sweet repose but rarely broken by the clamor of 
marauding bands, or the graver warfare of more ferocious 
revolutionists. 

To admit the strangers into such a land, sick from the tossings 
of the sea, and weak from the poison of the low lagoons, was worse 
for Juarez than a pitched battle wherein the victory rested with the 
invaders. Some of them at least would lay hands upon it for its 
beauty alone, if other and more plausible reasons could not be 
found. At an early day, however, the ambitious designs of Napo- 
leon began to manifest themselves. There were some protests 
made, some sharp correspondence had, not a few diplomatic quar- 
rels indulged in, and at last, to cut a knot they could not untie, the 
English and Spanish troops were ordered back peremptorily to 
Vera Cruz, the two nations abandoning the alliance, and withdraw- 
ing their forces entirely from the country. This left the French 
alone and unsupported. The treaty of Soledad expired, and they 
were ordered by Juarez to return to their original position. For 
answer there was an immediate attack. 

The city of Peublo, ninety miles north from Orizava, strong by 
nature, had been still more strongly fortified, and was held by a 

357 



358 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

garrison of twenty thousand Liberals, under tlic command of Sara- 
gosa, an ardent and impassioned young Mexican, as brave as he 
was patriotic. General Lorencez, who commanded the French, 
without waiting for reinforcements, and being destitute of a siege 
train, dashed his two thousand soldiers against the ramparts of 
Pueblo, and had them shattered and repulsed. The battle lasted a 
whole day through, and thrice the Third Zouaves passed the ditch, 
and thrice they were driven back. At nightfall a retreat was had, 
and after sore marching and fighting Lorencez regained Orizava, for- 
tifying in turn, and waiting as best he could for succor from France. 

It came speedily in the shape of General Forey and twelve 
thousand men. Pueblo was besieged and captured, and without 
further resistance and without waiting to give Juarez time to repair 
his losses, he hurried on to the City of Mexico, meeting everywhere 
an enthusiastic reception from the Imperial Mexicans, who believed 
that the work of subjugation had been finished. 

What the French do is generally done quickly. On the 17th of 
May, 1863, Pueblo surrendered; on the 13th of May Juarez evacu- 
ated the Capital; on the 10th of June the French took possession, 
and on the 16th General Forey issued a decree for the formation of 
a provisional government. This new government assembled with 
great solemnity on the 25tli of June. On the 2d of J.uly they pub- 
lished an edict containing a list of two hundred and fifteen persons 
who were declared to constitute the Assembly of Notables, intrusted 
with the duty of providing a plan for a permanent government. 
On the 8th of July this body was installed in the presence of the 
French Commander-in chief, and Count Dubois de Saligny, Minister 
Plenipotentiary of France. A committee was next appointed to 
draft a form of government, and on the 10th this committee sub- 
mitted their plan to the Assembly, which was unanimously adopted. 

These were its chief points": 

1st — The Mexican Nation adopts for its form of government a 
limited, hereditary monarchy, with a Catholic Prince. 

2d — The Sovereign will take the title of Emperor of Mexico. 

3d — The Imperial Crown of Mexico is offered to His Imperial 
Highness, Prince Fedinand Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, for 
him and his descendants 

4th — In case of any circumstances impossible to foresee, the 
Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian should not take possession of the 
throne which is offered him, the Mexican Nation submits to the 
benevolence of Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, to indicate 
to her another Catholic Prince. 

And thus was that Government created which was so soon to set 
in misery and tears. 

It is not generally known, but it is true, however, that as early 
as October 30, 1861, Maximilian was offered the throne of Mexico 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 359 

and declined it. Wliile expressing himself extremely grateful for 
the confidence reposed in his wisdom and moderation, and for the 
many sentiments of respect embraced in the letter containing the 
offer, he declared that he would first have to be assured of the will 
and co-operation of the country. And even when the French had 
conquered and occupied every important place in the Empire, 
and after the Assembly of Notables had created a government and 
sent its deputation to notify Maximilian of his unanimous election 
as Emperor, he still lingered as if unwilling to tempt the unknown. 
Did some good angel come to him in dreams and whisper of the 
future? Who knows? He at least deserved such a heavenly visit. 

After he had accepted the second offer of the throne, and before 
his departure from Miramar, Maximilian sent a special messenger 
to Mexico, bearing a communication to Juarez, which was written 
by Baron de Pont, his counselor. It was dated Bellevue Hotel, 
Brussels, March 16, 1864, and contained propositions to the 
effect that Maximilian did not wish to force himself upon the Mexi- 
cans by the aid of foreign troops, against the will of the people; 
that he did not wish to change or make for them any political sys- 
tem of government contrary to an express wish of a majority of 
the Mexicans; that he wished the bearer of the letter to say to 
President Juarez, that he, Maximilian, was willing to meet Presi- 
dent Juarez in any convenient place, on Mexican soil, which Pres- 
ident Juarez might designate, for the purpose of discussing the 
affairs of Mexico, in an amicable manner; and that doubtless an 
understanding and conclusion might be reached wholly in unison 
with the will of the people. 

The gentleman bearing the letter went to Mexico, saw Pres- 
ident Juarez, stated his mission, and gave him a copy of the com- 
munication. The President cooly answered that he could not con- 
sent to any meeting with Maximilian. 

This was in March. In April, 1864, the newly chosen Emperor 
sailed away from Trieste, from his beautiful home by the blue 
Medeterranean; from the Old World with its luxury and its art; from 
a thousand memories fresh with the dawn of youth and sparkling 
in the sunshine of happiness; from the broad aegis of an Empire 
whose monarch he might have been; from a proud fleet created and 
made formidable by his genius; from the tombs of his ancestors 
and the graves of his kindred— and for what ? To attempt an im- 
possible thing. Instead of a civilized and Christian monarch, the 
Mexicans needed missionaries. Instead of the graces and virtues of 
European culture and education, the barbarians required grap-shot 
and canister. Instead of plans for all kinds of improvements, for 
works of usefulness and adornment, the destroying vandals could 
be happy only with a despotism and the simple austerity of martial 
law. Poor Austrian and poor Emperor ! Attempting to rule 



360 SHELBYS EXPEDITION TO MEXICO : 

through justice and compassion, he seemed never to have known 
that for the work of regeneration he needed one hundred thousand 
foreign soldiers. 

There can be no doubt of the enthusiasm with which Maximilian 
and his beautiful Empress where greeted when they landed at Vera 
Cruz. Indeed, from the sea to the great lakes about the Capital, it 
was an ovation such as one seldom sees in a country where all is 
treachery, stolidity, brutality and ignorance. The fires of a joyous 
welcome that were lit at Vera Cruz blazed all along the route, and 
flared up like a conflagration in Paso del Macho, in Cordova, in 
Pueblo, smoking yet from the terrible bombardment, and on the 
lone mountain Rio Frio — where, looking away to the north, they 
for the first time might have almost seen the great cathedral spire 
of Mexico looming up through the mist— that hoary and august pile, 
as old as Cortez, and bearing high up, under the image of a saint, 
Montezuma's sacrificial stone, having yet upon it the blood of the 
foreigner. 

The omen was unheeded. 

When Shelby arrived in Mexico, Maximilian had been reigning 
over a year. The French held all the country that was worth hold- 
ing—certainly all the cities, the large towns, the mining districts, 
and the seaports. Besides the French troops, the Emperor had in 
his service a corps of Imperial Mexicans, and a small body of Aus- 
trian and Belgian auxiliaries. The first was capable of infinite 
augmentation, but they were uncertain, unreliable, and apt at any 
time to desert in a body to the Liberals. The last were slowly 
wasting away — being worn out as it were by sickness and severe 
attrition. The treasury was empty. Brigandage, a plant of indig- 
enous growth, still flourished and grew luxuriantly outside every 
garrisoned town or city. The French could not root it up, although 
the French shot everything upon which they got their hands that 
looked a little wild or startled. No matter for a trial. The order 
of an officer was as good as a decree from Bazaine. Thousands were 
thus offered up as a propitiation to the god of good order— many of 
them innocent — all of them shot without a hearing. 

This displeased the Emperor greatly . His heart was really with 
his Mexicans, and he sorrowed over a fusilade for a whole week 
through. At times he remonstrated vigorously with Bazaine, but 
the imperturbable Marshal listened patiently and signed the death 
warrants as fast as they were presented. These futile discussions 
at last ended in an estrangement, and while Maximilian was Em- 
peror in name, Bazaine was Emperor in reality. 

With a soldier's quickness and power of analysis, Shelby saw 
and understood all these things and treasured them up against the 
day of interview. This was speedily arranged by Commodore 
Maury and General Magruder. Maximilian met him without cere- 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 361 

mony, and with great sincerity and frankness. Marshal Bazaine 
was present. Count de Noue, the son-in-law of General Harney, and 
chief of Bazaine's civil staff, was the interpreter. The Emperor, 
while understanding English, yet preferred to converse in French 
and to hold all his intercourse with the Americans in that language. 

Shelby laid his plans before him at once. These were to take 
immediate service in his Empire, recruit a corps of forty thousand 
Americans, supercede as far as possible the native troops in his 
army, consolidate the Government against the time of the withdrawal 
of the French soldiers, encourage emigration in every possible man- 
ner, develop the resources of the country, and hold it, until the 
people became reconciled to the change, with a strong and well- 
organized army. 

Every proposition was faithfully rendered to the Emperor, who 
merely bowed and inclined his head forward as if he would hear 
more. 

Shelby continued, in his straightforward, soldierly manner: 

" It is only a question of time, Your Majesty, before the French 
soldiers are withdrawn." 

Marshal Bazaine smiled a little sarcastically, it seemed, but said 
nothing, 

" Why do you think so? " inquired the Emperor. 

" Because the war between the States is at an end, and Mr. Sew- 
ard will insist on the rigorous enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, 
France does not desire a conflict with the United States. It would 
neither be popular nor profitable. I left behind me a million men 
in arms, not one of whom has yet been discharged from the service. 
The nation is sore over this occupation, and the presence of the 
French is a perpetual menance. I hope your Majesty will pardon 
me, but in order to speak the truth it is necessary to speak 
plainly." 

"Go on," said the Emperor, greatly interested. 

" The matter whereof I have spoken to you is perfectly feasible. 
I have authority for saying that the American Government would not 
be adverse to the enlistment of as many soldiers in your army as 
might wish to take service, and the number need only be limited by 
the exigencies of the Empire. Thrown upon your own resources, 
you would find no diflQculty, I think, in establishing the most friendly 
relations with the United States. In order to put yourself in a 
position to do this, and in order to sustain yourself sufficiently long 
to consolidate your occupation of Mexico and make your Govern- 
ment a strong one, I think it absolutely necessary that you should 
have a corps of foreign soldiers devoted to you personally, and relia- 
ble in any emergency." 

On being appealed to. Commodore Maury and General Magruder 
sustained his view of the case, and Shelby continued; 



362. SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

" I have under my command at present about 1,000 tried and 
experienced troops. All of them have seen much severe and actual 
service, and all of them are anxious to enlist in support of the 
Empire. With your permission, and authorized in your name to 
increase my forces, and in a few months all the promises given here 
to day could be made good."* 

The Emperor still remained silent. It appeared as if Shelby was 
aa enigma he was trying to make out— one which interested him at 
the same time that it puzzled him. In the habit of having full and 
free conversations with Commodore Maury, and of reposing in him 
the most unlimited confidence, he would look first at Shelby and 
then at Maury, as if appealing from the blunt frankness of the one 
to the polished sincerity and known sound judgment of the other. 
Perhaps Marshal Bazaine knew better than any man at the interview 
how keenly incisive had been Shelby's analysis of the situation ; and 
how absolutely certain were events, neither he nor his master could 
control, to push the last of his soldiers beyond the ocean. At inter- 
vals the calm, immobile face would flush a little, and once or twice 
he folded and unfolded a printed despatch he held in his hands. 
Beyond these evidences of attention, it was not known that Bazaine 
was even listening. His own judgment was strongly in favor of the 
employment of the Americans, and had the bargain been left to him, 
the bargain would have been made before the end of the interview. 
He was a soldier, and reasoned from a soldier's standpoint. Maxi- 
milian was a Ch'ristian ruler, and shrank within himself, all his 
nature in revolt, when the talk was of bloodshed and provinces held 
by the bayonet. His mind was convinced from the first that Shelby's 
policy was the best for him, and he leant to it as to something he 
desired near him for support when the crisis came. He did not 
embrace it, however, and make it part and parcel of his heart and 
his affections. Therein began the descent that ended only at Quere- 
taro. After the French left he had scarcely so much as a bundle of 
reeds to rest upon. Those of his Austrians and Belgians spared by 
pestilence and war died about him in dogged and desperate despair. 
They did not care to die, only they knew they could do no good, and 
as Lieutenant Karnak said, when speaking for all the little handful, 
they saw the end plainer, perhaps, than any removed yet a stone's 
throw further from the finale. 

" This last charge will soon be over, boys, and there won't be 
many of us killed, because there are so few of us to kill; but (and 
he whispered it while the bugles were blowing) although we die 
for our Emperor to-day, he will die for us to-morrow." 

"When the rally sounded Karnak's squadron of seventy came 
back with six. Karnak was not among them. 

The Emperor did not reply directly to Shelby. He rose up, beck- 
oned De None to one side, spoke to him quietly and earnestly for some 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 363 

brief moments, dismissed his visitors pleasantly and withdrew. His 
mind, however, it appears, had been made up from the first. He was 
not willing to trust the Americans in an organization so large and so 
complete — an organization composed of forty thousand skilled and 
veteran soldiers, commanded by officers of known valor, and anxious 
for any enterprise, no matter how daring or desperate. Besides he 
had other plans in view. 

As De Noue passed out he spoke to Shelby: 

** It's no use. The Emperor is firm on the point of diplomacy. 
He means to try negotiation and correspondence with the United 
States. He thinks Mr. Seward is favorably disposed toward him, 
and that the spirit of the dominant party will not be adverse to his 
experiment with the Mexicans. His sole desire is to give them a 
good government, lenient yet restraining laws, and to develop the 
country and educate the people. He believes that he can do this 
with native troops, and that it will be greatly to the intcrc&t of the 
American Government to recognize him, and to cultivate with him 
the most friendly relations. At any rate," and De Noue lowered 
his voice, " at any rate, His Majesty is an enthusiast, and you know 
that an enthusiast reasons ever from the heart instead of the head. 
He will not succeed. He does not understand the people over wiiom 
he rules, nor any of the dangers which beset him. You know he 
once governed in Lombardy and Yenitia, when they were Austrian 
provinces, and he made so many friends there for a young prince 
that he might well suppose he had some divine right to reign suc- 
cessfully. There is no similarity, however, between the two posi- 
tions. A powerful army was behind him when he was in Italy, 
and a singularly ferocious campaign, wherein the old Austrian, 
Marshal Radetsky, manifested all the fire andvigorof his youth, had 
crushed Italian resistance to the earth. It was the season for the 
physician and the peace-maker, and the Emperor came in with his 
salves and his healing ointments. Singularly fitted for the part he 
had been called upon to perform, he won the hearts of all with 
whom he came in contact, and left at last universally loved and 
regretted. It is no use I say again. General, the Emperor will not 
give you employment." 

" I knew it," replied Shelby. 

" How ? " and De Noue shrugged his shoulders. 

" From his countenance. Not once could I bring the blood to 
his calm benignant face. He has faith, but no enthusiasm, and 
enthusiasm such as he needs would be but another name for audacity. 
I say to you in all frankness. Count De Noue , Maximilian will 
fail in his diplomacy." 

"Your reasons, General." 

" Because he will not have time to work the problem out. I 
have traveled slowly and in my own fashion from Predras Negras to 



364 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO: 

the'City of Mexico — traveled by easy stages when the need was, and 
by forced marches when the need was, fighting a little at times and 
resting a little at ease at times, but always on guard, and watching 
upon the right hand and upon the left. Save the ground held by 
your cantonments and your garrisons, and the ground your cannon 
can hold in range, and your cavalry can patrol and scour, you have 
not one foot in sympathy with you, with the Emperor, with the 
Empire, with anything that promises to be respectable in govern- 
ment or reliable in administration. Juraez lives as surely in the 
hearts of the people as the snow is eterral on the brow^ of Popocat- 
apetl, and ere an answer could come from Seward to the Emperor's 
Minister of State, the Emperor will have no Minister of State. 
That's all. Count. I thank you very much for your kind offices 
to-day, and would have given a good account of my Americans if 
king-craft had seen the wisdom of their employment. I must go 
back to my men now. They expect me early." 

Thus terminated an interview that had more of destiny in it, 
perhaps, than the seeming indifference and disinclination to talk on 
the part of the Emperor might indicate. The future settled the 
question of policy that alone kept the ruler and his subject apart. 
When the struggle came that Shelby had so plainly and bluntly 
depicted, Maximilian was in the midst of eight million of savages, 
without an army, with scarcely a guard, with none upon whom 
he could rely, abandoned, deserted and betrayed. Was it any 
wonder, therefore, that the end of the Empire should be the dead 
wall at Queretaro ? 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The annunciation of Maximilian's emphatic resolution bore 
heavily upon the Americans for some brief hours, and they 
gathered about their barracks in squads and groups to talk over the 
matter as philosophers and look the future full in the face like men. 
A soldier is most generally a fatalist. Some few of them liave 
presentiments, and some that abounding reverence for the Script- 
ures that makes them Christians even in the vengeful passious of 
pursuit; but to the masses rarely ever comes any thought of the 
invisible, any care for what lies out of sight, and out of reach, 
and uader the shadows of the sunset world. Sufficient unto the day 
is indeed for them the evil thereof. 

These Americans, however, of Shelby's had moralized much 
about the future, and had dreamed, it may be, many useless and 
unprofitable dreams about the conquests that were to give to th(n- a 
home, a flag, a country — a portion of a new laud filled full of the 
richness of the mines and the tropics. And many times in dream- 
ing these dreams they went hungry for bread. Silver had become 
almost invisible of late, and if all the purses of the men had been 
emptied into the lap of a woman, the doliarsthat might Lave been 
gathered up would scarcely have paid the price of a bridal veil. 
Still they were cheerful. When every other resourse failed, they 
knew they were in aland of robbers, and that for horses and arms 
none surpassed them in all the Empire. Hence when Shelby called 
them around him after his interview with the Emperor, it was with 
something of apathy, or at least of indifference that they listened to 
his report. 

"We are not wanted," he commenced, "and perhaps it is best so. 
Those who have fought as you have for a principle have nothing 
more to gain in a war for occupation or conquest. Our neccessities 
aregrievious, it is true, and there is no work for us in the line of our 
profession; but to-day, as upon the first day I took command of you, 
I stand ready to abide your decision in the matter of our destiny. 
If you say we shall march to the headquarters of Juarez, then we 
shall march, although all of you will bear me witness that at Pie- 
dras Negras I counseled immediate and earnest service in his gov- 
ernment. You refused then as you will refuse to-day. Why? 
Because you are all Imperialists at heart just as I am, and because, 
poor simpletons, you imagined that France and the United States 
might come to blows at last. Bah! the day for that has gone by. 
Louis Napoleon slept too long. The only foreigner who ever under- 
stood our war, who ever looked across the ocean with anything of 

b65 



366 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

a prophet's vision, who ever said yes when he meant yes and no 
when he said no, was Palmerston, and he was an Abolitionist 
per se. " 

Here Shelby checked himself suddenly. The old ironical fit 
had taken possession of him, one which always came on him on 
the eve of the battle or the morning of the conflict. 

" I find myself quoting Latin when I do not even understand 
Spanish. How many of you know enough Spanish to get you a 
Spanish wife with an acre of bread fruit, twenty-five tobacco plants 
and a handful of corn? We can not starve, boys." 

The men laughed long and loud. They had been gloomy at 
first and a little resolved, some of them, to take to the highway. As 
poor as the poorest there, Shelby came among them with his badi- 
nage and his laughter, and in an hour the forces of the expedition 
were as a happy family again. Plans for the future were presented, 
discussed and abandoned. Perhaps there would be no longer any 
furtlier unity of action. A great cohesive power had been sud- 
denly taken away, and there was danger of the band breaking up — 
a band that had been winnowed in the fierce winds of battle, and 
made to act as with one impulse, by the iron influences of discipline 
and disaster. Many came solely for the service they expected to 
take. If they had to dig in the ground, or sufl!er chances in the 
raising of cotton or corn, they preferred to do it where it was not 
necessary to plow by day and stand guard over the mules and oxen 
at night — to get a bed at the end of the furrows instead of a fusilade. 

To do anything, however, or to move in any direction, it was 
necessary first to have a little money. Governor Reynolds, with 
the same zeal and devotion that had always characterized his efforts 
in behalf of Missourians during the war in his own country, sought 
now to obtain a little favor for the men at the hands of Marshal 
Bazaine. In conjunction with General Magruder, he sought an 
interview with the Marshal aud represented to him that at Parras 
the Expedition had been turned from its original course, and forced 
to march into the interior by his own positive orders. This move- 
ment necessarily cut it off from all communication with friends 
at home, and rendered it impossible for those who composed it to 
receive either letters or supplies. Had it been otherwise, and had 
the march to the Pacific been permitted, in conformity with the 
original intention, access to California was easy, and the trips of the 
incoming and outgoing steamers to andfrt m Guaymasand Mazatlan 
regular and reliable. In their view, therefore, the Marshal, they 
thought, should at least take the matter under consideration, and 
act in the premises as one soldier should in dealing with another. 

Bazaine was generous to extravagance, as most French officers 
are who hold power in their hands, and whose whole lives have 
been spent in barrack and field. He took from his military chest 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 367 

fifty dollars apiece for the men and officers, share and share alike, 
and this amount came to each as a rain to a field that the sun is 
parching. It put into their hands in a moment, as it were, the 
choosing of their own destiny. Thereafter every man went the 
way that suited him best. 

Commodore Maury had, several months before, been made 
Imperial Commissioner of Emigration, and was at work upon his 
duties with the ambition of a sailor and the intelligence of a saTiant. 
All who came in contact with him loved the simple, frugal, gentle 
Christian of the spiritual church and the church militant. Some 
of his family were with him. His son was there, Col. Richard 
H. Maury, and his son's wife, and other Americans who had fami- 
lies, and who were at work in his office. These formed a little 
society of themselves — a light, as it were, in the night of the 
exiles. The Commodore gave the entire energies of his massive 
mind to the work before him. He knew well the exhausted and 
discontented condition of the South, and he believed that a large 
emigration could be secured with but little exertion. He dispatched 
agents to the United States charged with the duty of representing 
properly the advantages and resources of the country, and of lay- 
ing before the people the exact condition of Mexican affairs. This 
some of them did in a most satisfactory manner, and as a result a 
great excitement arose. By one mail from New York he received 
over seven hundred letters asking for circulars descriptive of the 
country, and of the way to reach it. 

Maury's renown had filled the old world as well as the new. His 
"Physical Geography of the Sea" saw itself adorned in the graces of 
eleven separate languages. It also brought him fame, medals, 
crosses, broad ribbons of appreciation and purses well filled with 
gold, these last being the offerings sea captains and shippers made 
to the genius who laid his hand upon the ocean as upon a slate, 
and traced thereon the routes that the winds favored, and the 
routes that had in ambush upon them shipwreck and disaster. His 
calm, benevolent face, set in a framework of iron gray hair, was 
one which the women and the children loved — a picture that had 
over it the aureole of a saint. No gentler man ever broke bread at 
the table of a court. Much of the crispness and the sparkle of the 
salt water ran through his conversation . He was epigrammatic to 
a degree only attained on board a man-of-war. His mind had the 
logic of instinct. He divined while other men delved. Always a 
student, the brilliance of his imagination required at his hands the 
most constant curbing. Who that has read that book of all sea 
books has forgotten his reference to the gulf stream when he says: 
" There is a river in the midst of the ocean." Destiny gave him a 
long life that he might combat against the treachery of the sea. 
When he died he was a conqueror. 



368 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

General Magruder was the Imperial Commissioner of the Land 
Office, and he, loo, had gathered his family around him, and taken 
into his service other Americans weary of degradation at home, and 
exiles in a land that might to-day have been Maximilian's. Magru- 
der had once before entered Mexico as a conqueror. All its ways 
and its moods were known to him, and often in the sunshiny 
weather, when the blue air blessed the glad earth with its blessings 
of freshness and fragrance, those who were dreaming of the past 
followed him hour after hour about Chepultepec, and over the 
broken way of Cerro Gordo, and in amid the ruins of Molino de- 
Rey, and there where the Belen gate stood yet in ghastly and scat- 
tered fragments, and yonder in its pedregral and under the shadow 
of Huasco, pbout the crest of Churubusco, green now in the gar- 
ments of summer, and asleep so peacefully in the arms of the sun- 
set that the younger loiterers think the old man strange when he 
tells of the storm and the massacre, the wounded that were bayo- 
neted and the dead that were butchered after all life had fled. There 
are no specters there, and no graves among the ruins, and no 
splotches as of blood upon the velvet leaves. Yes, surely the old man 
wanders, for but yesterday, It seems to them, the battle was fought. 

Soldiers never repine. Destiny with them has a name which is 
called April. One day it is gracious in sunshiny things, and the 
next ruinous with rainstorms and cloudy weather. As it comes 
they take it, laughing always and at peace with the world and the 
things of the world. Some faces lengthened, it may be, and some 
hopes fell in the hey-day and the morning of their life, when Shelby 
told briefly the story of the interview, but beyond the expressions of 
a certain vague regret, no man went. Another separation was near 
at hand, one which, forthemost of them there, would be the last and 
irrevocable. 

In the vicinity of Cordova there was a large extent of unculti- 
vated land which had once belonged to the church, and which had 
been rudely and unscrupulously confiscated by Juarez. When 
Maximilian came into possession of the Government, it was confi- 
dently believed that he would restore to the church its revenues and 
territory, and more especially that portion of the ecclesiastical 
domain so eminently valuable as that about Cordova. It embraced, 
probably, some half a million acres of cotton and sugar and coffee 
land, well watered, and lying directly upon the great national road 
from Vera Cruz to the Capital, and upon the Mexican Imperial Rail- 
way, then finished, to Paso del Macho, twenty-five miles southward 
from Cordova. 

Maximilian, however, confirmed the decree of confiscation issued 
by Juarez, and set all this land apart for the benefit of American 
emigrants who, as actual settlers, desired to locate upon it and 
begin at once the work of cultivation. Men having families 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 3g9 

received six hundred and forty acres of land, at the stipulated 
price of one dollar and a quarter per acre, and men without 
families three hundred and twenty acres at the same price. Com- 
missioner Maury, remembering his schooling and the experience of 
his Washington days when he ruled the National Observatory so 
much to the glory of his country and the honor of science; adopted 
the American plan of division, and thereby secured the establish- 
ment of a system that was as familiar to the new comers as it was 
satisfactory. 

Many settlers arrived and went at once to the colony, which 
in honor of the most perfect woman of the nineteenth century, was 
named Carlota. A village sprung up almost in a night The men 
were happy and sung at their toil. Birds of beautiful plumage flew 
near and nearer to them while they plowed, and in the heat of the 
afternoons they reposed for comfort under orange trees that were 
white with bloom and golden with fruit at the same time. So im- 
patient is life in that tropical land that there is no death. Before 
it is night over the eyes the sun again has peopled all the groves 
with melody and perfume. The village had begun to put on the 
garmentsof a town. Emigration increased. The fame of Carlota 
went abroad, and what had before appeared only a thin stream of 
settlers, now took the form of an inundation. 

Shelby told his men all he knew about Carlota, and advised them 
briefly to pre-empt the legal quantity of land and give up at once any 
further idea of service in the ranks of Maximilian's army. Many 
accepted his advice and entered at once and heartily upon the duties 
of this new life. Others, unwilling to remain in the Empire as 
colonists, received permission from Bazaine to march to the Pacific. 
On the long and dangerous road some died, some were killed, and 
6ome took shipping for California, for China, for Japan, and for 
the Sandwich Islands. A few, hearing wonderful stories of the 
treasures Kidd, the pirate, had buried on an island in the Pacific 
Ocean, got aboard a schooner at Mazatlan and sailed away in quest 
of gold. Those that survived the adventure returned starving, and 
for bread joined the Imperial army in Sonora. Perhaps fifty took 
service in the Third Zouaves. A singular incident determined the 
regiment of their choice. After authority had been received from 
the Marshal for the enlistment, a dozen or more strolled into the 
Almeda where, of evenings the, bands played and the soldiers of all 
arms promenaded. In each corps a certain standard of height had to 
be complied with. The grenadiers had need to be six feet, the 
artillery men six feet and an inch, the cuirassiers six feet, and the 
hussars six feet. Not all being of the same stature, and, not wishing 
to be separated, the choice of the Americans was reduced to the 
infantry regiments. It is further obligatory in the French service, 
that when soldiers are on duty, the private in addressing an ofllcer 



370 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

shall remove his cap and remain with it in his hand until the con- 
versation is finished. This was a species of discipline the Americans 
had never learned, and they stood watching the various groups as 
they passed to and fro, complying scrupulously with the regulations 
of the service. At last a squad of Zouaves sauntered nonchalantly 
by — great bearded, medaled fellows, bronzed by African suns and 
swarthy of brow and cheek as any Arab of the desert. The pictur- 
esque uniform attracted all eyes. It was war dramatized — it was 
campaigning expressed in poetry. An officer called to one of the 
Zouaves, and he went forward saluting. This was done by bringing 
the right hand up against the turban, with the palm extended in 
token of respect, but the turban itself was not removed. The sub- 
ordinate did not uncover to his superior, and therefore would the 
Americans put on turbans, and make Zouaves of themselves. Cap- 
tain Pierron, more of an American than a Frenchman, supervised 
the metamorphosis, and when the toilette was complete even Shelby 
himself, with his accurate cavalry eyes, scarcely recognized his old 
Confederates of the four years' war. At daylight the next morning 
they were marching away to Monterey at the double quick. 

General Sterling Price, of Missouri, with a remnant of his body 
guard and a few personal friends, built himself a bamboo house in 
the town of Carlota, and commenced in good earnest the life of a 
farmer. Emigration was active now both from Texas overland and 
by water from the gulf. General Slaughter and Captain Price 
established a large saw-mill at Orizava. General Bee engaged 
extensively in the raising of cotton, as, also did Cap- 
tains Cundiff and Plodge. General Hindman, having mas- 
tered the Spanish language in the short space of three months, com- 
menced the practice of law in Cordova. General Stevens, the chief 
engineer of General Lee's staff, was made chief engineer of the 
Mexican Imperial Railway. Governor Reynolds was appointed 
superintendent of two short-line railroads running out from the 
city. General Shelby and Major McMurty, with headquarters at 
Cordova, became large freight contractors, and established a line 
of wagons from Paso del Macho to the Capital. Ex-Governor 
Allen, of Louisiana, assisted by the Emperor, founded the Mexican 
Tiines, a paper printed in English, and devoted to the interests of 
colonization. Generals Lyon, of Kentucky, and McCausland, of 
Virginia, were appointed Government surveyors. General Wat- 
kins was taken into the diplomatic service, and sent to Washington 
on a special mission. Everywhere the Americans were honored 
and promoted, but the army, to any considerable number of them, 
was as a sealed book. Where they could have done the most good 
they were forbidden to enter. 

To the superficial observer the conditon of affairs in Mexico in 
the latter part of the year 1865 seemed most favorable, indeed, to 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 8?1 

the ultimate and successful establishment of the Empire. The 
French troops occupied the entire country. M Langhiis, one of 
Napoleon's most favored ministers, had charge of the finances. 
Under his experienced hands order was rapidly lifting itself above 
the v^^aves of chaos. The Church party, always jealous and suspi- 
cious, still yielded a kind of sullen and ungracious allegiance, Max- 
imilian was a devout Catholic, and his Empress was a devotee in all 
spiritual matters, but theirs was the enlightened Catholicism of 
Europe, which preferred to march with events and to develop 
instead of attempting to thwart and retard the inevitable advance 
of destiny. They desired to throw off the superstition of a century 
of ignorance and degradation and let a flood of light pour itself over 
the nation. An impoverished people had not only mortgaged their 
lands to the clergy but their labor as well. The revenues were 
divided equally between the bishops and the commandantes of the 
districts. Among the Indians the influence of the monks was 
supreme. , In their hands at any hour was peace or war. They 
began by asserting their right to control the Emperor, they ended 
in undisguised and open revolt. Desiring above all things the con- 
fidence and support of the church, Maximilian found himself sud- 
denly in an unfortunate and embarrassing position. He was be- 
tween two fires as it were, either of which was most formidable, 
and in avoiding the one he only made the accuracy of the other all 
the more deadly. Without the revenue derived from the seques- 
trated lands the church had owned in enormous quantities, he could 
not for a month have paid the expenses of his Government. Had he 
believed a restoration advisable he would have found it simply im- 
possible. The ArchBishop was inexorable. Excommunication 
was threatened. For weeks and weeks there were conferences and 
attempted compromises. Bazaine, never very punctual in his relig- 
ous duties, and over apt to cut knots that he could not untie, had 
always the same ultimatum. 

" Our necessities are great," he would say, "and we must have 
money. You do not cultivate your lands, and will not sell them, 
you are opposed to railroads, to emigration, to public improve- 
ments, to education, to a new life of any kind, form or fashion, 
and we must advance somehow and build up as we go. Not a foot 
shall be returned while a French soldier can shoot a chassapot." 

The blunt logic of the soldier bruised while it wounded. Maxi- 
milian, more conservative, tried entreaties and expostulations 
but with the same effect. A breach had been opened up which was 
to increase in width and destruction until the whole fabric fell in 
ruins. When in his direst extremity, the Emperor was abandoned 
by the party which of all others had the most to lose and expiate 
by his overthrow. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Empress Charlotte was a woman who had been twice 
crowned — once with a crown of gold, earthly and perishable, and 
once with a crown of beauty as radiant as the morning. When sbe 
arrived in Mexico, this beauty, then in its youthful splendor, 
dazzled all beholders. Her dark auburn hair was heavy, long and 
silken. Her eyes were of that lustrous brown which were blue and 
dreamy at times, and at times full of a clear, penetrating light that 
revealed a thought almost before the thought was uttered. Her 
face was oval, although the forehead a little high and projecting, 
was united at the temples by those fine curves which give so niuch 
delicacy and expression to the soul of women. Her mouth was 
large and firm, and her teeth were of the most perfect whiteness. 
About the lower face there were those lines of firmness which told 
of unbending will and great moral force and decision of character. 
Beneath the dignity of the Queen, however, she carried the ardor 
and the joyfulness of a school girl. He nose was acquiline, the 
nostrils open and slightly projecting, recording, as if upon a page, 
the emotions of her heart, and the dauntless courage which filled 
her whole being. At times her beautiful face wore an expression 
impossible to describe — an expression made up of smiles, divinations, 
questionings, the extreme and blended loveliness of the ideal and 
the real— the calmness and gravity which became the Queen — 
the softness and pensiveness which bespoke the woman. 

The gallery that contained the portrait of Maximilian would be 
incomplete without that of his devoted and heroic wife. She was a 
descendant of Henry IV. of France, the hero of Ivry, a ruler next 
in goodness and greatness to Louis IX, and the victim of the fanat- 
ical assassin Ravaillac, Her father was Leopold I., of Belgium, 
one of the wisest and most enlightened monarchs of Europe. An 
Englishman by naturalization, he married the Princess Charlotte 
Augusta, daughter of George IV., the 2d of May, 1816. His 
English wife dying in childbirth, in 1817, Leopold again married 
in 1832, uniting himself with Louise Maria Theresa Charlotte Isa- 
bella de Orleans, daughter of Louis Philippe, King of France. Of 
this marriage was the Empress Carlota born on the 7th of June," 
1840, and who received at her christening the names of Maria Char= 
lotte Amelia Auguste Victoire Clementine Leopoldino. Her father 
was called the Nestor of Kings, and her mother the Holy 
Queen, such being her charity, her purity and her religious devotion. 
The fii«st died in 1865, while the Empress was in Mexico, and the 
last in 1850. At the time when sbe most needed the watchfulness 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 373 

and advice of a father, she was suddenly bereft of both his support 
and his protection. 

No monarch on earth ever had a more ambitious and devoted 
consort. The daughter of a king, and reared amid thrones and the 
intense personal loyalty of European subjects, she believed an 
empire might be established in the West greater than any ever 
founded, after long years of battle and statecraft, and she entered 
upon the struggle with all the impassioned ardor of her singularly 
hopeful and confiding nature. Her unrivaled beauty won the 
enthusiasm of cities^, and her unostentatious and Christian charity 
erected for her a throne in the hearts of the suffering and unfortnate. 
When the yellow fever was at its height in Vera Cruz, and when all 
who were wealthy and well-to-do had fled to the higher and healthier 
uplands, she journeyed almost alone to the stricken seaport, visited 
the hospitals, ministered unto the plague-stricken, ordered physi- 
cians from the fleet, encouraged the timid, inspired the brave, paid 
for masses for the dead, and came away wan and weary, but safe 
and heaven-guarded. The fever touched not even the hem of her 
garments. Fate, that sent the east wind and the epidemic, may, 
like the stricken sufferers, have thought her an angel. 

There were pestilence and famine and insurrection in Yucatan. 
The Indians there, naturally warlike and enterprising, rose upon 
the Government and cast off its authority. Tribes revolted and 
warred with one another. The French, holding the large towns, 
fortified and looked on in sullen apathy, sallying out at times to 
decimate a province or lay waste a farming district. In a few weeks 
the insurrection would be civil war. It was decreed in council that 
the Emperor's presence was needed in Yucatan, His affairs at 
home, however, were not promising, and he tarried a little to 
arrange them better before leaving. Of a sudden the Empress 
besought leave to go in his stead. It was refused. She persevered 
day after day, and would not be denied. Inspired with more than 
a woman's faith, and heroic in all the grandeur of accepted sacrifice, 
she made the perilous journey, taking with her only an escorfand a 
confessor. Her arrival at Merida was like a coronation. All the 
State arose to do her homage. She went among the tribes and 
pacified them. She redressed their wrongs, brought back the 
rebellious leaders to a strict allegiance, cast herself into the midst of 
pestilence, opened the churches, recalled the proscribed and 
scattered priests, and came away again an angel. Unto the end the 
faith she founded in her husband's empire remained unshaken. 
After Queretaro, Yucatan relapsed into barbarism. 

The year 1865 was spent by the Emperor and Marshal Bazaine in 
vigorous attempts to pacify the country and consolidate its power. 
The Liberal cause seemed hopeless. Nowhere did Juarez hold a sea- 
port, an outlying mine, a foot of grain-growing territory, a ship, an 



374 SIIELBi'"S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

arsenal, a field large enough to encamp an army. Yet lie held on. 
That sluggish, tenacious, ferocious Indian nature of his was aroused 
at last, and while he starved he schemed. A sudden dash of cavalry 
upon his winter quarters at El Paso drove him into the United 
States. He went to San Antonio a fugitive President without a 
dollar or a regiment, and waited patiently until the force of the 
blow had spent itself. As the French retired he advanced. Scarcely 
had his adieu been forgotten in El Paso when his good day greeted 
its good people again. Everywhere, also, were his guerrillas at 
work. Once in a speech upon the annexation of San Domingo, 
Carl Schurz exclaimed: "Beware of the tropics." And why? 
Because the tropics breed guerrillas. They do not die in war times. 
Malaria does not kill them. To eradicate them it is first necessary 
to find and to capture them. They can not be found and fought. All 
nature is in league with thera — the heat, the bread-fruit, the bananas, 
the orange-groves, the zepotas, the mangos, the coco-nuts, the mon- 
keys. These last sentinels through imitation, chatter volubly at th6 
pursuers and cry out in soldier fashion and in words of warning : 
" Quien vive!" Wherever the Spanish blood is found there is found 
also an obstinacy of purpose impossible to subdue — a singularly 
ferocious and untamable resolution that dies only with annihilation. 
It will never make peace, never cease from the trail, never let go 
its hold upon the roads, never spare a captive, never yield a life to 
mercy, never forgive the ruler who would rule as a Christian and 
make humanity the law of the land. 

All the following that Juarez had now was one of guerrillas. 
Porfino Diaz lived by his wits and YAs prestamos . Escobedo, con- 
stitutionally a coward and nationally a robber, preyed alone upon 
his friends. Try how they would, the French found him always a 
runaway or a thief. Negrete, with six thousand blanketed ladrones, 
abandoned a captured train and fled as a stampeded buffalo herd 
liefore a battalion of Zouaves. Lozado preserved in the mountains 
(f Nayarit an armed neutrality. Corona, in the delightful posses- 
sion of his beautiful American wife, sat himself down in Sonora 
and waited for the tide to turn. For his country he never so much 
as lifted his hand, Cortina prayed to the good Lord and the good 
devil, and went alternately to mass and the monte bank. 

They all held on, however. An unorganized commune — the goods 
of other people were their goods, the money of other people was 
their money. As long as the rains fell, the crops matured, the cat- 
tle kept clear of the murrain, and bread-fruit got ripe, and the mag- 
uey made mescal, they were safe from pestilence or famine. The 
days with them meant so many belly fulls of tortillas and frijoles. 

With the French it U different. Red tape has a dynasty of its 
own — a caste, a throne, an army of field and staff officers. Each 
day represented so many rations, so many bottles of wine, so many 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE Vf AR. 375 

ounces of tobacco, so many cigars, so much soup and bread and 
meat. Failing in any of these, red tape stepped in with its money 
commutation in lieu of rations. Then for each decoration there 
was an annuity. Some Zouaves drew more pay than generals of 
brigade. The Malakoff medal so much, the lukermann medal so 
much, the Chinese Emperor's Palace medal so much, the Fort Con- 
stantine medal so much, the Magenta and Solf erino medals so much, 
the Pueblo medal so much, and so much for all the rest of the medals 
these many laureled and magnificent soldiers wore. When they 
were paid off they had monthly a saturnalia. 

To make both ends meet. Napoleon's great finance minister, 
Langlais — loaned as an especial favor to Maximilian — did the work 
of a giant. One day he died . Apoplexy, that ally and avenger of the 
best-abused brain, laid hands on him between the Palace of Chepul- 
tepec and the office of the treasury. In two hours he was dead. 
All that he had done died with him. Of his financial fabric, reared 
after so many nights of torture and trouble, there was left scarcely 
enough of pillar or post to drape with mourning for the single 
minded, sincere and gifted architect. In the dearth of specie the 
church was called upon. The church had no money, at least none 
for the despoiler of its revenues and the colonizer of its lands. 
Excommunication was again threatened, and thus over the thresh- 
hold of the altar as well as the treasury, there crept the appalling 
shadow of bankruptcy. 

Bazaine threatened, the Emperor prayed, the Empress threw 
into the scale all her private fortune at her command. Outside the 
cabinet walls, however, everything appeared fair. Brilliant reviews 
made the capital gorgeous and enchanting. There were operas, and 
fetes, and bull-fights, and great games of monte in the public square, 
and duels at intervals, and one unbroken tide of French successes 
everywhere. Napoleon sent over in the supreme agony of the crisis 
two ship loads of specie, and there was a brief breathing time again. 
Meanwhile they would see, for when it is darkest it is the nearest 
to the morning. 

Inez Walker, the rescued maiden of Encarnacion, was too 
beautiful to have been lightly forgotten. Free once more, and with 
the terrors of that terrible night attack all gone from her eager eyes, 
she had continued with the Expedition to the capital, courteously 
attended each day by an escort of honor furnished as regularly as 
the guards were furnished. 

In the City of Mexico, at the time of her arrival, there was an 
American woman who had married a Prussian prince, and who was 
known as the Princess Salm Salm. Once when she was younger, 
she had ridden in a circus, several of them, and as Miss Agnes 
Le Clerc was noted for her accomplished equestrianism, her magnifi- 
cent physique, a beauty that was dark and over-bold, a devil-may- 



376 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

care abandon which won well with those who sat low by the foot- 
lights and felt the glamour of the whirling music and the red flames 
that flashed on golden and gaudy trappings of acrobat or actor. 

Miss Le Clere had met the Prussian in Mobile after the American 
war was over. The Prince had been a Federal General of brigade 
whose reputation was none of the best for soldierly deeds, although 
it is not recorded that he either shunned or shirked a fight. Still he 
was not what these parvenu Americans of ours think a prince should 
be— he did not clothe himself in silver, or gold, in purple or fine 
linen, and conquer armies as Rarey might have conquered a horse. 
There were some stories told, too, of unnecessary cruelty to prison- 
ers whom the fortunes of war cast upon his hands helpless, but 
these did not follow him into Mexico with his American wife, who 
had married him in Mobile, and who had got thus far on her way in 
search of a coronet. 

She was told the history of Inez Walker, and she was a brave, 
sympathetic, tender-hearted woman, who loved her sex as all women 
do whom the world looks upon as having already unsexed them- 
selves. They became fast friends speedily, and were much together 
at the opera and upon the passeo during those last brief yet brilliant 
days of the Empire. 

The Prince Salm Salm was on duty with a brigade at Apam, in 
the mountains toward Tampico. Guerrillas had been at work 
there lately, a little more savage than usual, and Bazaine sent for- 
ward Salm Salm to shoot such as he could lay hands upon and dis- 
perse those that could not be caught. He acted with but little of 
energy, and with scarcely anything of ambition. He was recalled 
finally, but not until his wife had been grossly insulted and a Con- 
federate had avenged her. 

One day, in ac^r/e, several groups of Belgian officers were at the 
tables sipping their wine, and jesting and talking of much that was 
bad and useless. At other places there were Austrians and French, 
and a few Spaniards, who even then were beginning to avoid the 
foreigners, and a single American, who was sitting alone and at his 
leisure. 

Dr. Hazel was a young physician from South Carolina, who 
had gone through the siege of Sumter with a devotion and a con- 
stancy that had found their way into general orders, and that had 
returned in the shape of a rain more precious to a soldier than sun- 
light to flowers — the rain of official recognition. In addition to the 
compliments received he was promoted. As he sipped his claret, 
several ladies entered, some attended and some unattended. French 
custom makes a cafe as cosmopolitan as the street- All sexes con- 
gregate there, and all stratas of society; custom simply insists that 
the common laws of society shall be obeyed — that those of the/ 
demi-monde shall not advertise their profession, that the gambler 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 377 

shall not display his cards, the guerrilla uncoil his lasso, the grand 
dame exhibit her prudeiy, the detective his insincerity and the 
priest his protests and his confessional. Appetite admits of no 
divided sovereignty, and hence, at meal time, the French recognize 
only one class in society, that of the superlatively hungry. 

The Princess Salm Salm returned the salutation of several 
French officers as she entered, and bov^ed once or twice in acknowl- 
edgment of salutes rendered by the Austrians of her husband's 
brigade. Beyond these she seemed to prefer isolation and privacy. 
Among the Belgians there was a Major who had a huge yellow 
beard, a great coarse voice, a depth of chest like an ox, a sword-belt 
whose extent would girth a hogshead. In French cafes, gentlemen 
very rarely speak above the low conversational tone of the drawing 
room. To be boisterous is to be either drunk or a blackguard. 
This Belgian, Major Medomark of the Foreign Legation, did not 
seem to be drunk, and yet as he looked at the Princess Salm Salm, 
his voice would change its intonation and deepen harshly and grat- 
ingly. If he meant to be offensive he succeeded first rate. 

The Princess pushed back her plate and arose as one who felt 
that she was the subject of conversation without understanding the 
words of it. As she passed through the door, Medomark boister- 
ously and in great glee, called out a slang term of the circus, and 
shomed : 

''Hoop la r 

The Agnes LeClere that was of the sawdust and tights, the 
Princess Salm Salm that is now of the titles and diamonds, heard 
the brutal cry and felt to her heart the studied insult. Turning 
instantly, she came again half into the cafe — her eyes full and dis- 
colored with passion, and her face so white that it appeared as if the 
woman was in mortal pain. She could not speak, though she tried 
hard, poor thing, but she looked once at Medomark as if to crush 
him where he sat, and once to Hazel, who understood it all now, 
and arose as she again retired. 

He went straight to his American countrywoman. At the cow- 
ardly inference of the Belgian, the French officers had laughed and 
the Austrians had applauded. Even those of her husband's own 
brigade had not uttered protest or demanded apology. Hazel found 
her in tears. 

"You have been insulted," he said. "I know it, or rather, I 
may say I saw it. Not understanding German, if, indeed, the Bel- 
gians speak German, I have to rely for my opinion more upon the 
manner than the matter of the insult. Your husband is away, you 
are an American lady, you are a countrywoman of mine, you are in 
trouble and you need a protector. Will you trust yoiw honor in my 
hands? " 

This actress was a brave, proud woman, born, perhaps, to rule 
men as much by the force of her will as the bizarre style of her 



378 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

beauty and her physical development. She took Hazel's hand and 
thanked him, and bade him chastise the insolent bully. She knew 
very vs^ell what chastisement meant in the language of a soldier, and 
she was a soldier's wife. She never referred to the future, how- 
ever. She did not even evince interest enough to be curious. Per- 
haps her passion kept her from this — at least her champion bowed 
low to her as he entered, thinking her the coldest woman a man 
ever put his life in jeopardy for. Cold she was not. She simply 
considered what was done for her as being done because of her 
inalienable right to have it done. She was not familiar, she only 
tolerated. 

Hazel, in stature, was very slight. As he stood up before 
Medomark the huge Belgian glowered upon him as Goliah of Gath 
might have done upon David. 

" Do you speak EngHsh ? " he asked of the Major. 

"A little." 

"Enough to understand the truth when I tell it to you ? " 

"Perhaps, if it is not so plain that for the telling I will have to 
break every bone in your body. " 

3Iedomark's voice was one of that uncontrollable kind that ran 
away with a subject in spite of itself. He meant to be quiet so as 
not to attract attention, but he was so rude that many of the specta- 
tors quit eating to look on. 

" That lady, " Hazel continued, "who has just gone out is a 
country-woman of mine. She may have been an actress just as you 
may have been a hangman's son, but whatever she has been she is a 
woman. We do not insult women in the country where I once 
lived , nor do we permit it to be done elsewhere. Will you apologize 
to her?" 

" I will not. " 

" Will you accept this card and let me send a friend to you ?" 

" I will with jileasure." 

" Then, I wish you good day, gentlemen, " and Hazel bowed to 
all as he went out, like a man who had just finished his dinner. 

Medomark was brave, besides, he was an officer. There were, 
therefore, but two courses left to him, but two things to do — to 
accept Hazel's cartel or to refuse it. In preference to disgrace he 
chose the duello. Hazel found his second speedily. He, too. was 
a soldier— one of Shelby's best, James Wood— who would go to any 
extreme on earth for a friend. 

When two men mean business, the final arrangements are simply 
matters of form. On tine morning after Medomark's insult in 
the cafe. Wood called upon him early. During the day the pre. 
liminaries were all amicably agreed upon, and at sunrise the next 
morning, about a quarter of a mile southeast of the American bury- 
ing ground, Hazel and Medomark met at ten paces with duelling 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 379 

pistols. The Belgian's second was a young French Lieutenant 
named Massac, who won both the position and the word. When the 
men took their places, Hazel had the sun in his eyes, and this 
annoyed him at first, for it was very hot and penetrating. They 
fired twice at each other. The first time both missed, the sec- 
ond time Hazel struck Medomark upon the outside point of the 
right shoulder, injuring the bone greatly and severing an artery that 
bled as if the man would bleed to death. Prompt and efficient 
surgical skill, however, saved his life. The duel ended after the 
second fire, and the Princess Salm Salm, so splendidly vindicated at 
the hands of her young countryman, was the toast thereafter of the 
officers of the garrison. The Prince on his return could not render 
thanks enough, nor seek to show his appreciation of the chivalrous 
act by too many evidences of a more substantial gratitude. The city 
being under martial law, a court-martial was soon convened for the 
trial of all who were engaged in the duel. A sentence, however, 
was never reached. Upon the request of Bazaiue, the court was dis- 
missed and the prisoners set at liberty. Medomark recovered fully 
only to be desperately wounded again at Queretaro, where, after 
long and devoted attention on the part of Dr. Hazel, a surgeon in 
the Republican army, he was restored to both health and liberty. 
From this little episode a friendship sprung up which has remained 
unbroken to this day. * * * * * 

The colony at Carlota grew apace and was prosperous. The 
men began to cultivate coffee and sugar, and from a jungle the plan- 
tations soon bloomed and blossomed like another Paradise. As an 
especial favor from Maximilian, Shelby was permitted to pre empt 
the hacienda of Santa Anna, not a hacienda, however, that had 
belonged to this prince and chief of conspirators, but one that had 
been named for him. Spaniards once owned it, but in the massa- 
cres of the revolution all had perished. About the ruins of the 
fortress which still abounded, there were signs which told of the 
fury of the onslaught and the scorching of the flames that fol- 
lowed when the rapine and the ravishments were done. Situated 
two miles from Cordova, and in the very purple heart of the tropics, 
it might have been made at once into a farm and a flower garden. 
Twelve acres were put in coffee, and coffee well cultivated and per- 
mitted to grow in a land where there is law and protection pays to 
the raiser a minimum price per acre of $1,500. It seems, however, 
that nature is never perfect in the equilibrium of her gifts. There, 
where the soil is so deep, the air so soft, the climate so delicious, the 
trade winds so cool and delightful, the men alone are idle, and come 
in the night to the plantations of the foreigners to break down their 
coffee trees, poison their spring water, wound their dumb stock, and 
damage everything that can be damaged and that comes in their 
way. 



380 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

lu the mountains in the rear of Shelby's plantation a robber band 
rendezvoused. Its chief, Don Manuel Rodriguez, was a daring 
leader, who descended to the plains at intervals with a reckless fol- 
lowing, and made headway for hours at a time in his work of 
gathering up supplies and levying prestamos. In a month after 
Shelby's arrival a friendly relationship was established, and there- 
after, until the end, Rodriguez protected Santa Anna, and lived at 
peace with all who were settled round about. Just how the nego- 
tiations were commenced and consummated which led to a truce so 
satisfactory and so necessary, none ever knew, put true it is that 
in the cool of the evenings, and when the French drums had beaten 
tattoo at the fort only half a mile away, Rodriguez would come down 
from his fastnesses as a peaceful visitor, and sit for hours among the 
Americans, asking of the Yankee country, and the ups and the 
downs of the Yankee war, for, to a Mexican everything is Yankee 
which is American. 

Ex-Governor Isham G. Harris, of Tennessee, alsoasettler, might 
have been designated the Alcalde of Carlota. The Confederates 
looked upon him with a kind of reverence. By the side of Albert 
Sidney Johnston when he got his death wound, he had taken him in 
his arms and held him there until the mist came into Lis sad, pro- 
phetic eyes, and until the brave, fond heart, broken by his country's 
ingratitude, and the clamor of despicable and cowardly politicians, 
had ceased to beat. Brownlow especially wanted Harris, and so 
Harris had come to Mexico. He knew Brownlow well— a bitter, 
unrelenting, merciless fanatic, and a fanatic, too, who had come in 
on the crest of the wave that had drowned the cause for which 
Harris fought. He believed that if the old Pagan failed to find a 
law for his capital punishment, he would succeed certainly through 
the influence of gold and political power over an assassin. Unwill- 
ing at all events to risk the tyrant, he found penniless asylum at 
Cordova, poor only in pocket, however, and courageous and proud 
to the last. He was a cool, silent, contemplative man, with a heavy 
lower jaw, projecting forehead, and iron gray hair. In his princi- 
ples he was an Ironside of the Cromwellian type. Perhaps the 
intense faith of his devotion gave to his character a touch of fatal- 
ism, for when the ship stranded he was cast adrift utterly wrecked 
in everything but his undying confidence in the success of the Con- 
federacy. He believed in Providence as an ally, and rejected con- 
stantly the idea that Providence takes very little hand in wars that 
come about between families or States, if, indeed, in wars of any 
kind. With his great energy, his calm courage, his shrewd, prac- 
tical intercourse with the natives, his record as a governor and a 
soldier, he exerted immense influence for good with the soldier-set- 
tlers and added much to the strength and stability of the colony. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 381 

Colonel Perkins, of Louisiana, a judge of great fame and ability, 
and a lawyer as rich in triumphs at the bar as he was possessed of 
slaves and cotton bales upon his plantation, abandoned everything 
at home but his honor, and isolated himself among his coffee-trees 
and bananas. When the war closed he took a week to speak his 
farewells and burn his dwelling house, his cotton presses, his 
stables, barns, out-houses, and to make in fact of his vast possessions 
a desert. He had a residence rich in everything that could amuse, 
instruct, delight, gratify. Painting, statuary, flowers, curiosities, 
rare plants, elegant objects of vertu and art were there in abun- 
dance, and when from the war he returned crushed in spirit and 
broken in health, he rested one night brooding amid all the luxury 
and magnificence of his home. He arose the next morning a stoic. 
With a torch in his hand he fired everything that would burn, 
leaving nowhere one stone upon another to tell of what had once 
been the habitation of elegance and refinement. In his Mexican 
solitude he was an aristocratic philosopher, complaining of nothing 
and looking back with regret upon nothing. Sufficient unto the 
day for him had been the evil thereof. 

General Sterling Price was another settler. Many of his escort 
company had taken lands around him. The patriarch chief in a 
new country, he sat much in the shade about his tent, telling the 
stories of the war and hoping in his heart for the tide of persecution 
and proscription in Missouri to run itself out. Politics v as as 
necessary to his mental equilibrium as sleep to his physical. In the 
old days he had succeeded well. Nature gave him a fine voice, a 
portly frame, a commanding front, agracefuland dignified carriage, 
SHI aplomb thsit never descended into nervousness, and hence a-s the 
speaker of a legislative body he was unexcelled. He dreamed of a 
speakership again, of a governorship, of a senatorship, and he, 
therefore, cultivated more corn than he did coffee, for it takes three 
years for coffee to grow and bear, and three years might — well, he 
did not choose to put himself into the hands of three years and wait. 

It would at least be curious, if it were not interesting, to go in 
among these colonists in Carlota and learn their histories while dis- 
playing the individuality of each. A common misfortune bound 
them all together in the strength of a recognized and yet unwritten 
covenant. The pressure of circumstances from without kept them 
indissolubly united. Poverty, that dangerous drug which stimu- 
lates when it does not stupefy, lost its narcotism over men whom 
war had chastised and discipline made strong and reflective. They 
strove for but one purpose — to get a home and occupy it. 

The privateer Shenandoah, that mysterious cruiser whith was 
seen rarely at sea, yet which left upon the waves of the South 
Pacific a monstrous trail of fire and smoke, sent her officers into 
the colony with their ship money and their cosmopolitan hardi- 



382 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO: 

hood. Lieutenants Chew and Scales took valuable land and went 
enthusiastically to work. Around the hacienda of Santa Anna 
there was a cordon of strange pioneers who had histories written in 
characters impossible to decipher. The hieroglyphics were their 
scars. 

And so affairs prospered about Carlota, and the long, sunshiny 
days went on, in which the trade winds blew and the orange blos- 
soms scented all the air. It was near three days' long journey to the 
Capital, bat rumors travel fast when every ear is listening for them, 
and a report deepened all along the route from Mexico to Vera Cruz 
that a staff officer of the French Emperor had left Paris for the 
headquarters of Marshal Bazaine. A multitude of reasons were 
assigned for the visit. Napoleon might desire, for the purposes of 
information, the direct observations of one who was intimately 
acquainted with his views and intentions. It might be, again, with 
a view to increasing the forces of the Expedition, or to the employ- 
ment of more active and rigorous measures in the pacification of the 
country. Accordingly, as men were hopeful or depressed, they rea- 
soned concerning this visit of tlie French staff officer, even before 
the officer himself was half across the Atlantic. 

From first to last, the treasury of Maximilian had been compara- 
tively empty. He curtailed his own personal expenses, abandoned 
the civil list, lived like a plain and frugal farmer, set everywhere an 
example of retrenchment and economy, but it availed nothing. 
Mexico, with all of her immense mineral resources, is, and has been, 
usually poverty stricken. There is no agriculture, and, conse- 
quently, no middle class. At one extreme is immense wealth, at 
the other immense misery Ignorance and superstition do the rest. 

His exertions to pay his soldiers and carry forward a few vitally 
necessary internal improvements, were gigantic. Pendingthearrival 
of the French envoy extraordinary, he had negotiated a loan at 
home, which was taken by patriotism — a strange word for a Mexi- 
can — and which had already begun to flow into his empty coffers. 

Things, therefore, were not so dark as they had been when Gen- 
eral Castelnau, personal aid-de-camp of the Emperor Napoleon, 
arrived at Vera Cruz. 

General Castelnau kept his own secret well, which was also the 
secret of his master, Napoleon III. A magnificent review was held 
in the city of Mexico at which he was present. Soldiers of all arms 
were there, and a great outpouring of the people. Everything 
looked like war, nothing like evacuation, and yet General Castelnau 
brought with him definite and final orders for the absolute and 
unconditional withdrawal of the French troops. 

The Empress penetrated the purpose of his mission first and 
again came forward to demand a last supreme effort in behalf of 
the tottering throne. She would go to Europe and appeal to its 



AN UNWRITTEX LEAF OP THE WAR. 383 

chivalry. The daughter of a king, it ^oiild be to monarchs to 
whoEQ she would address herself face to face. She was young, and 
beautiful, and pleading for her crown, and why would not armies 
arise at her bidding and march either to avenge or reinstate her? 
Poor, heroic woman, she tried as never woman tried before to stem 
the tide of fate, but fate was against her. First the heart and then 
the head, until with hope, faith, ambition, reason all gone, she 
staggered out from the presence of Napoleon dead in all things but 
a love that even yet comes to her fitfully in the night time as dreams 
come, bringing images of the trees about the Alameda, of the palace 
where she dwelt, of Miramar and Maximilian. 

In the summer of 1866 she sailed for Europe. She knew Castel- 
nau's mission, and she determined to thwart it. There was yellow 
fever at Vera Cruz and pestilence on the ocean. Some of her 
attendants were stricken down by her side and died at Cordova, 
others on board the ship that carried her from port. She bore up 
wonderfully while the mind held out. Nothing affrighted her. 
The escort marching in the rear of her carriage was attacked by 
guerrillas. She alighted from it, bade a soldier dismount, got upon 
the back of his horse and galloped into the fight. Here was an 
•Amazon of the nineteenth century who had a waist like a willow 
wand, who painted rare pictures, who bad a husband whom she 
adored, who sang the ballads of her own exquisite making, who was 
struggling for a kingdom and a crown, and who never iu all her 
life saw a drop of blood or a man die. 

The fight was simply a guerrilla fight, however, and from an 
Amazon the woman was transformed into an Empress again — ten- 
der, considerate, desperate in the wild emergency upon her, and 
joyous with the fierce eagerness of her longings and her despair. 

Never any more in life did the blue eyes of her husband and her 
lover gaze upon that fair Norman face, almost colorless now and set 
as a flint in the stormy sunset of the night when she sailed away to 
her destiny. 

Bazaine took his time to obey his orders — indeed, he had margin 
enough and leisure enough to contract his lines pleasantly. Not 
always overbold in retreat, the French had learned well the nature 
of Mexican warfare and would turn sometimes viciously when 
galled to wincing on flank or rear, and deal a few parting blows 
that unto this day are recalled with shudderings or impotent vows 
of vengeance. 

One at Matamoras is worth a mention. The Sixty-second of the 
line did garrison duty there under Colonel Lascolat. He was to 
Dupin what the needle-gun is to the smooth-bore. Dupin destroyed 
singly, at short range, in ambushments, by lonesome roads, in sud- 
den and unmerciful hours — from the depths of isolation and the 
unknown. Lascolat, an Algerian oflacer of singular ferocity, 



384 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

hunted in regiments. Even the physique of his men was angular, 
akish, undulatory like the movements of a greyhound. They 
would march thirty miles a day fighting, bivouac anywhere, sleep if 
they could; very well, if they could not, still very well. With 
them was a priest who wore five medals he had won in battle. When 
he had time he shrived all alike. In his hands the cross was good 
enough for the dying who spoke Spanish and the dying who spoke 
French. In the presence of the specter he took no thought of 
nationality. 

As Lascolat came out from Matamoras, a portion of Escobedo's 
forces pressed him inconveniently. His orders from Bazaine were 
to take his time, fight only when forced, be dignified, patient and dis- 
creet, but to make sure of his egress out with everything that 
belonged to him or his. Lascolat had under him two battalions of 
1,000 men each. The third battalion composing the regiment of the 
Sixty-second had already been sent forward to Jeanningros at 
Monterey. Escobedo attacked with 5,000. He knew of Lascolat's 
ferocity, of his terrible doings about and along the Rio Grande, and 
he meant to take a farewell, the memories of which would last even 
unto Algeria again. 

One afternoon late the line of Lascolat's march led through a 
ravine, which commenced broad like the mouth of a funnel and 
tapered down to a point, as a funnel would taper. Near the outlet 
Escobedo fortified the road with loose boulders. Behind these and 
upon the sides of the acclivities on either side he placed his men in 
ambush. He had no artillery, for he so shaped the fight as to make 
it face to face and deadly. Lascolat entered into the trap listlessly. 
If he knew what had been prepared for him he made no sign. Sud- 
denly the loose, disjointed, impassive wall outlined itself. Some 
sharp skirmishing shots came from the front. The shadows of the 
twilight had begun to gather. It looked ugly and ominous where 
the stones were, 

Lascolat called a halt and rode back along the ranks of his men 
They were weary, and they had seated themselves upon the ground 
to rest. His presence fired them as a torch passing across a line of 
ready gas-lights. He spoke to them pleasantly in his Algerian 
vernacular: 

" The Arabs are ahead. We are hungry, we are tired ; we want 
to go into camp; we have no time to make a flank movement. 
Shall we make quick work of the job, that we may get some supper 
and some sleep?" 

The men answered him with a shout. The charge commenced. 
It was a hurricane. The barricade of rocks was not even so much 
as a fringe of bulrushes. Those who held it died there. The hill 
slopes, covered with prickly pear and dagger- trees, hid a massacre. 
The Sixty-second swarmed to the attack like bees about a hive in 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR, 385 

danger. Paralyzed, routed, decimated, torn as a tempest tears 
Escobedo's forces tired but one fair volley, and tied as shadows tlee 
when the wind pursues. The dead were never counted. Lascolat's 
farewell was taken, but those who came out well from the hand- 
shaking slackened march not a step until the route had passed into 
Matamoras, and over against a river that might be crossed for the 
wading. Thereafter the Sixty-second foraged as it pleased, and 
took its own time toward the coast. 

Colonel Depreuil was in danger— Shelby's old antagonist of Parras 
— and it remained for Shelby to save him. In the marchings and 
countermarchings of the evacuation, Depreuil, commanding six 
hundred men of the Foreign Legion, was holding a post twenty 
leagues northwest of San Luis Potosi. Douay, with inadequate 
cavalry, was keeping fast hold upon this most important strategictd 
point, awaiting the detachments from the extreme north. Shelby 
was a freighter now, and had come from the City of Mexico with a 
strong guard of Americans, and eighty wagons laden with supplies 
for the French. After reporting to Douay he was sent forward with 
twenty men and ten wagons to Cesnola; the outlying post garrisoned 
by Depreuil. The guerrillas, emboldened by the absence of cavalry, 
had risen up some two thousand strong, and were between San Luis 
and Cesnola. As Shelby marched on into the open country his 
advance, under James Kirtley, was fired upon, and two soldiers, 
James Ward and Sandy Jones, severly wounded. He countermarched 
to an abandoned hacienda, encamped his wagons within the walls, 
fortified as best he could, and sent Kirtley back with two men to 
report the condition of affairs to General Douay. Kirtley was not 
well mounted, he had served awhile in the Third Zouaves, the 
hostile Mexicans were swarming about all the roads, it looked like 
death to go on, it certainly was death to be taken, and so he started 
when the night fell, having with liim two comrades, tried and true — 
George Hall and Thomas Boswell. 

It was thirty good miles to San Luis Potosi, and those who way- 
laid the roads had eyes that saw in the night and were not baffled. 

Captain James Kirtley, burnt almost brown by exposure, and by 
four long years of struggle with the wind and the sun, had the face 
of a Mexican and the heart of an English lancer who rode down to 
the guns with Cardigan and the Light Brigade, Peril affected his 
spirits as wine might. Ambition and adventure with him were twin 
mistresses — blonde to his eyes, beautiful, full of all passionate love, 
fit to be worshiped, and they were worshiped. Always brave, he 
had need to be always generous. Danger, when it does not deter, 
sometimes gives to those who fear it least a certain kind of pensive- 
nessthat is often mistaken for indifference. When aroused, how- 
ever, this kind of a pensive man rides harder and faster, fights longer 
and more desperately, will hold on and hang on under greater stress. 



386 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

reach out his life in his open hand oftener, and die, if so the fates 
desire, with less of murmur and regret than a regiment of great 
roystering soldiers whose voices are heard in songs in the night with 
the mighty roll and volume of the wind among the pines. 

Kirtley, even under the tawny paint the sun had put upon h'l 
face, would blush like a girl when, to some noted deed of soldierlj 
daring, public attention directed the eyes of appreciation. Praise 
only made him more reticent and retired. As he never talked of 
himself, one could not hear ought of his valorous deeds from his 
own lips, for these were a part of himself. To compliment him 
was to give him pain — to flatter was to offend; and yet this young 
hero, not yet a man, surrounded by all things that were hostile, 
even to the language, known to have been a soldier in the Third 
Zouaves, the terror of the Empire, badly mounted for pursuit or 
escape, came with a smile upon his face for the perilous venture, 
ai-.d rode away and into the night and the unknown, in quest of 
succor for Depreuil and his beleaguered garrison. 

It was a long thirty miles he had to go, the three men, Kirtley, 
Hall and Boswell. On every side there were guerrillas. The night 
was dark, although the road was plain, for it was the great national 
highway which ran from Monterey to the Capital. The danger, 
however, came from the fact that it was too plain. Others knew 
of it, and rode along it, and crouched in ambushment upon it, and 
made it a torment for small parties by day as well as by night. 

Kirtley, even in the darkness, advanced in skirmishing order. 
First, he of the three went alone in advance, behind him was Hall, 
and in the rear of Hall, Boswell. Between each was the distance of 
twenty yards. It was necessary to get word through to Douay, and 
Kirtley argued the less risk taken the greater chance there would be 
for one of the party getting through. 

" We must keep apart," he said, "just far enough tosuccoreach 
other, but not too close to be killed by the discharge of a shot-gun, 
as out of a flock of partridges one might kill a bag full," 

The ride was a silent and grimly tenacious one. Three times 
they turned from the high road to avoid a scouting party of guerril- 
las, and once, in going past a little group of four or five huts by the 
wayside — a place, indeed, where mescal is sold, and where, upon all 
the roads in Mexico, huts are concentrated for this purpose alone — 
Kirtley, who had kept his position fixedly in front the whole night 
through, was fired upon from an angle of a house. The bullet 
missed his left thigh barely, and imbedded itself in the flank of his 
poor, tired horse that had borne himself stanchly through it all. 
One drop of blood was more really than the weary animal could 
afford to give up, but this wound bled freely, and the horse stag- 
gered as he went. It was yet three leagues to San Luis Potosi, 
and the night had turned. By dint of much coaxing and walking 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 387 

to relieve him, Kirtley managed to get over some further grouud 
slowly. He felt for his horse, as all cavalry soldiers do, and from 
the wound to his abandonment he never struck him once with the 
spur, though it might he that his life hung upon the gait the horse 
went, weak and crippled as it was. The wound was deeper than 
any one of the three thought, and so, when nearer the bottom of an 
abrupt descent, the gallant steed lurched forward suddenly, caught 
as it were by his fore feet, reeled blindly, and fell forward, too help- 
less to arise again, too far gone for leech or surgeon craft. 

Kirtley murmured not. Looking once at his faithful companion , 
as if in infinite pity, he strode on under the stars on foot, keeping his 
place still in the advance, and keeping his pensive face fixed in the 
iron mold of its energy and determination. 

It was daylight when the three dauntless scouts reached the 
French outposts at San Luis Potosi — tired, safe, proud of the perils 
passed, ready to return at a word and to carry back the succor 
Shelby so much needed at this time himself, and the succor 
Depreuil had needed, without knowing it, for a week. 

Douay gave to the three soldiers a soldier's welcome. His old 
gray head, inclined a little forward, heard all the report through 
that Shelby had sent, and it was brief enough even for him who 
dealt mostly in gestures or monosyllables. 

"You have ridden all night," he said, "and you need food, 
sleep, brandy, horses. Captain." 

An aide came. 

" Your pardon one moment. General," said Kirtley, "while I 
correct you. We do not need any sleep. As we return we can 
sleep as we ride. That was once part of our drill. We left our 
General in danger, and he in turn sent us forward to notify you of 
the danger of your Colonel. We will take the food, the brandy 
and the horses, but the sleep, no. General, with many thanks." 

Douay's keen brown eyes opened wide at this frank and ingen- 
uous speech. It pleased him more than he cared to say, more than 
he admitted then. Afterward, when a soldier led up a magnificent 
Arab stallion to the meson where Kirtley was eating and presented 
it to him in the name of Douay, the young American felt in his 
heart the gratified pride of one whose perils and frankness had mer- 
ited recognition at the hands of him who had fought in the four 
quarters of the world, and who had grown up from childhood to 
old age a hero beloved by the army and revered by a nation. 

Before the sun rose three squadrons of Chasseurs, a section of 
flying artillery, and the three Americans thrown forward as guides, 
were galloping back toward the hacienda at which Shelby was for- 
tified and fighting. Each American had been supplied with a splen- 
did horse by Douay, and althought they had ridden ten leagues the 
night before, they pressed on indifferent to fatigue and impervious 
to the demands of sleep. 



388 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

It was time. Shelby, of his whole force of twenty men, had 
only fifteen left: Two had been wounded, and three had been sent 
back to San Luis Potosi for succor. Of the wagons he had formed 
a corral. Between the wheels and in front and rear he had piled up 
sand-bags. Among the freight destined for Dupreuil's outpost were 
several hundred sacks of corn. These were emptied, filled up again 
with sand, and laid two deep all about the wagons. No musket 
ball could penetrate them, and the guerrillas had no artillery. 

A summons came to him for surrender. 

Shelby parleyed all he could. He dreaded a charge where, 
from sheer momentum, five hundred sheep might overrun, and, 
perhaps, crush fifteen men. A renegade priest named Ramon 
Guitierrez, having the name of a blood-thirsty priest and the 
fa ne of a cowardly one, too, commanded the besiegers. Before 
Shelby would talk of surrender he wanted to see some show of 
force. His honor did not permit a capitulation without his reason 
was convinced that to resist would be madness. In other words, he 
wanted on his side the logic and reasonableness of war. 

Guitierrez took a look at the sand bags, and thought Shelby's 
propositions very fair. He took another and a closer look, having in 
his vision this time the gleaming of fifteen rifle barrels and the ris- 
ing and falling of rough, hairy faces above the parapets of the 
hastily constructed fort, and he concluded to accept it. To be very 
certain of passing in review all the men he had, he marched about 
in various directions and in the most conspicuous places for several 
hours — precious hours they were, too, and worth a week of ordinary 
time to those who never meant to surrender, but who expected to 
fight desperately, maybe unavailingly, before the friendly succor 
came. 

When the parade was over Guitierrez sent word to ask if Shelby 
would surrender. 

No, he would not. He had counted some five hundred illy 
armed rancJieros, and he meant to fight them to the death. Firing 
at long range commenced. The Americans did not reply to it. 
The sun was too hot for the kind of work that did not pay in 
corpses. Ecnboldened by this silence, the Mexicans crept closer 
and closer. Here and there a bullet found its way into the fort. 
Volley answered volley now, and then the noise died out into calm, 
cold, cautious skirmishing. Shelby had mounted two dark looking 
logs at either angle of the corral, and these, from a distance, looked 
like cannon. It might not be best to charge them, and so Guitierrez, 
crept backward and forward until the day wore well on its way. 
Suddenly he gathered together his followers and made a little 
speech to them. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. Both 
Ward and Jones, who had been wounded the day before, had 
insisted on holding an embrasure between them. They had strength 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 389 

enough to load and fire their breech-loaders, and they were not 
refused. Every bullet counted in the desperate melee. 

With a shrill, short yell the Mexicans dashed forward to the 
attack. Had the wave held on its course it would have inundated 
the earthwork. It broke, however, before it reached half way 
across the open space behind which it had gathered for the onset. 
Those in front began to fire too soon, and those in the rear, not 
seeing from the smoke what was really in front, fired, too, and 
without aim or object. "With unloaded guns they dared not go on 
— the fire of the Americans was distressing beyond endurance — the 
wave broke itself into fragments, and the sun sunk lower and 
lower. 

"Nearly out of the wilderness, boys," Shelby said; as his wary 
and experienced eyes took in the outline of the spent charge as it 
made itself clear against the range of hills in rear of it. 

" We need water greatly," Ras Woods ejaculated, his mouth 
parched and his face black with powder smoke. 

" In an hour you shall drink your fill," replied Shelby, " for in 
an hour the French will be here." 

"But if Kirtley has fallen." 

"He will not fall. Luck goes with him everywhere. What's 
that ?" 

He pointed as he spoke to a sudden agitation and fluttering 
among the masses of the besiegers, who were now galloping furi- 
ously to and fro, utterly without a head and heedless of all threat 
or command. 

" Ah !" and Shelby's face cleared up all at once, as he returned 
to Woods, " you can go out for water now, the fight is over." 

Before he had finished, the full, ringing notes of the French 
bugles were heard, and in a moment more the squadrons emerged 
from the trees, galloping straight and in beautiful order toward the 
guerrillas. 

There was no combat after the French appeared. What killing 
was done was done solely upon those who were too slow in the 
race, and who could not reach the rocks in time that rose up on 
three sides as a series of walls that had once been laid with much 
symmetry and had fallen in rugged yet regular masses in some great 
convulsion or upheaval of nature. Nowhere in fair fight was a 
Mexican cut down, nor at no single time did even a squad rally 
among the rocks and fire back upon the pursuing cavalry. The 
panic at last degenerated into a stampede, while the impenetrable 
groves of cactus shrubs and the broken and uninhabitable country 
^wallowed up the fugitives. The chase soon ended and the French 
returned. 

These two rescuing squadrons were led by Captain Mesillon, 
whose orders were very full and explicit. He was first to cut 



390 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Shelby out from the hostile forces which surrounded him, and next 
to report to Shelby and march whithersoever Shelby directed. 

The French rarely put faith in foreign officers. Their vanity — 
a kind of national inheritance — recognized no merit like French 
merit, no superiority in war, politics, diplomacy, love or religion 
like French superiority. Hence, where Frenchmen are concerned, 
they invariably insist that Frenchmen shall alone be responsible. 
In this instance, however, Douay wrote this manner of a note to 
Shelby: 

"To complete the conquest of Colonel Depreuil, of whose bear- 
ing toward you at Parras I have been duly informed by General 
Jeanningros, I chose that he shall owe his life to you. Captain Mes- 
illon awaits your orders. I need not advise you to be circumspect, 
and to tell you to take your own time and way to reach Cesnola and 
bring my Frenchmen back to me, for whom, I imagine, there is no 
great love in the hearts of its inhabitants." 

Mesillon reported, and Shelby put himself at the head of the 
Cuirassiers. 

' ' Since Depreuil has to come out from Cesnola," Shelby remarked 
to the young French Captain, "and since General Douay expects 
us to make haste and bring him out, there is no need to take our 
wagons further. Guitierrez has been too badly frightened to return 
here much under a month, and beyond his forces I can hear of no 
others in the mountains round about. We will let the wagons, there- 
fore, remain where they are, forage and rest here until the night 
falls, and then — strengthened and refreshed — cut through, ride down 
or ride around everything that opposes us. So make these reso- 
lutions known, Captain." 

The Frenchman bowed and retired. He saw in a moment that 
the soldier who was talking to him knew more of the warfare ahead 
in a moment than he had ever seen in his life. He knew, further- 
more, that if the worst come to the worst, it would not be the fault 
of the commander if Depreuil was not rescued. 

The night came and the column started. Between the road where 
the wagons were left, and Cesnola, the entire country was alive with 
guerrillas. Beyond Cesnola there were no Imperial troops of any 
kind, and between Cesnola and San Luis Potosi there was neither 
garrisoned town nor fortified village. It was a stretch of ambush 
sixty miles long. 

* When the night came Shelby put himself at the head of his 
detachment and never drew rein until Cesnola was reached. The 
column was ambushed seven separate and distinct times, and fired 
upon from hedges-rows, from behind houses in villages through 
which it passed, and from a variety of places that were inaccessible 
to the sudden dash of cavalry. Twenty-eight French soldiers were 
killed and wounded. Twice the Captain solicited the privilege of 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 391 

making a charge upon the unseen enemy crouching by the roadside, 
and twice he was refused. 

*' You lay too much to heart these mosquito bites," Shelby said 
to him kindly, "when there is danger of centipedes and tarantulas 
before we are done with it. A man is bound to fall out here and 
there, hard hit and may be killed, but the balance will be enough to 
get through. When one gets surrounded as Depreuil lias done, one 
must expect to pay the i)enalty of the rescue. Sometimes it is 
extremely costly, but the night favors us, and there is no moon. 
Keep with your men. Captain, encourage them, expose yourself 
freely in front of them, talk to them calmly, and my word for it you 
shall reach Cesnola with fewer depletions in your ranks than if you 
charged into the unknown every time a musket volley came from it." 

Depreuil did not know of his danger. The succoring party 
appeared to him as an apparition. Well fortified at Cesnola, and 
having at his command no cavalry with which to ascertain what 
existed beyond the range of his cannon, he eat, and slept, and drank 
absinthe with the same nonchalance his life in Parras manifested. 
Safe for the day, he took no thought of the morrow. He was one 
of those officers who believed that one French battalion was stronger 
than destiny — more powerful than fate. 

Mesillon awoke his reverie rudely. When there had been 
explained to him all the risk Shelby had run in getting cavalry to 
him, how he had fought, and marched, and planned, and endured 
solely for his sake and for the sake of humanity. Depreuil's heart 
softened quickly. He came to Shelby as one who felt that he'had 
a great debt of gratitude to repay, and took his hands in both of his. 

** Never mind the past," he commenced, "nor the rude things 
said and done in Parras. I see it all now. Perhaps I owe my life 
to you — certainly the lives of many of my soldiers, for whom I am 
responsible. In future let us remember each other only as brave 
men and soldiers. I, too, like Captain Mesillon, put myself under 
your orders. When shall we evacuate Cesnola? " 

Shelby had his revenge at last — that kind of revenge which is 
always sweet to noble minds — the revenge of returning good for 
evil. He answered him: 

"Would you take your heavy cannon with you? " 

" I don't know. Would you?" 

" In my military life I never left a trophy in the hands of my 
enemies. Were I a Frenchman I would surely carry off my French 
guns." 

" Then in a day we can march." 

"Let it be so, but make haste. Colonel. This country breeds 
guerrillas as the marshes do miasma." 

Still leading, Shelby came away from Cesnola in command of 
the whole French force. Depreuil's men wondered a little, but 



392 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Dupreuil, in the height of his gratitude, thought no compliment 
sufficiently high to pay the rough-clad, quiet American fighter, who 
did not even have so much as a red sash around him as an insignia 
of rank or authority. 

Fighting commenced almost as soon as the evacuation of Cesnola 
took place. Heading always the Americans and Cuirassiers in 
parson, however, Shelby was enabled by several sudden and bloody 
repulses to put such a wholesome fear of punishment in the minds 
of the pursuers that they gave him ample time to carve out for the 
train a safe road in front while protecting amply the perilous road 
in the rear. 

For three days and nights he held on his course, fighting con- 
stantly and caring alike for his.dead and his wounded. The morn- 
ing of the fourth day brought him to the French lines of San Luis 
Potosi and to an ovation. General Douay turned out the whole 
garrison under arms, and, as the detachment which had been doing 
garrison duty at Cesnola marched in — worn by much fighting — 
weary from long marching — dusty and faint, yet safe and victorious 
— it was saluted with sloping standards, presented arms, and the 
long exultant roll of triumphant music. 

In the evening Douay called upon Shelby. 

"I have come to reward you," he said, in his usual bluff and 
sententious manner, "and would be glad to know your price." 

"Your friendship, simply," was the reply of the proud Amer- 
lean. 

" That you already have," the good old General continued, " but 
you are poor, you are an exile, you can have no refuge more in this 
country when it is known that you rescued a French garrison, you 
have been turned aside from your business as freighter, and I 
demand the privilege of paying you at least for your time, and for 
your losses in mules and wagons." 

. "Very well. General," Shelby replied, " but as you are leaving 
the country you must wait until we meet again in the City of Mex- 
ico. Until then remember your promise." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

In the short space of time accorded to him between the reception 
of the orders brought for the withdrawal of the French troops and 
their actual accomplishment, Maximilian did the work of one who 
meant to fight a good fight for his kingdom and his cause. And yet 
for the great superstructure he tried so hard to rear and decorate, the 
poor man had never considered a moment about its foundation. 
He had no standing army — nothing to rely upon when the French 
left that was real and tangible — nothing that was frank and manly 
and that would take him boldly by the hand and say: " Sire, we are 
here; trust us as you would yourself." 

When that sudden dash of cavalry, which drove Juarez across 
the Rio Grande and into Texas, had spent itself, and when it was 
believed that there was no longer in the land either a regularly 
armed or regularly organized force of Liberal soldiers, the cele- 
brated black flag order w as promulgated. This law — based upon the 
declaration that Juarez had left the country, and that consequently 
there could be no longer in existence any regularly constituted gov- 
ernment — required all Mexicans captured with arms in their hands 
after the date of the decree — October 3d, 1865 — to be summarily put 
to death. Maximilian resisted its passage to the last, but Bazaine 
was inexorable. He appeared before the Council of State and 
declared upon his official honor that Juarez had left the territory of 
Mexico. He complained of the leniency shown to the guerrillas, 
and cited numerous instances to prove how French soldiers, cap- 
tured on detached service, had been first tortured and then most 
brutally murdered, while those Mexican prisoners tried under the 
ordinary forms of a court-martial, had either been punished lightly 
or suffered to escape altogether. 

Bazaine triumphed, as he always did when brought in contact 
with the soft, pliable nature of the Emperor, and almost immediately 
after the decree was issued, there was enacted under it a fearful 
obedience. General Mendez, one of the few Mexicans really and 
sincerely devoted to Maximilian, was holding the enemy in awe in 
the State of Morelia. Of a sudden he turned upon a guerrilla force, 
routed it, captured well on to a hundred, shot them all, and pro- 
claimed in triumphant language that such should be the fate of all 
who came within reach of his hands. Among the slain were Gen- 
eral Arteaga and Colonel Salasa. Arteaga was what was rare in 
Mexico, a genuine humorist. Corpulent, fair though born in the 
tropics, fond of laughter and wine, in no wise cruel or vindictive, a 
soldier from necessity rather than inclination, a judge whose decisions 



394 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

were always in favor of the guilty, it did seem a sin to shoot the 
great, harmless, laughing gourmand, who told his jokes much 
of tener than his beads, and had a whole regiment of friends in the 
very ranks of the French army itself. Other executions took place 
in other portions of the Empire, and when the Emperor found that 
he could no longer resist the tide of blood that had set in, he quar- 
reled with Bazaine. The Marshal was firm, however, and the Em- 
peror fled to Cuernavaca. This was a small town forty miles south- 
west from the City of Mexico. It had the deliciously blended cli- 
mate of the tropical and the temperate latitudes. It was summer in the 
day, and antumn in the night-time. Maximilian had a retreat here, 
and thither he would go when State cares pressed too heavily from 
without, and little spites and pitiful envies and jealousies from with- 
in. He had a house there and a garden, and among his books and 
his flowers he held loving converse with the past and the present — 
the great who had passed away from earth and the beautiful which 
still remained. From these communions and reveries he would 
return a more patient and a more gentle man. 

The shooting went on, however, and Mendez and Miramoh 
obeyed the decree with a persistence characteristic solely of the 
Spanish blood. 

As the French lines contracted, the skeleton regiments and brig- 
ades of Juarez weref ully recruited. In many places those Mexican 
troops who were in the service of the Empire were turned upon and 
and beaten. At other times they ran without a fight, throwing 
away their arms and disbanding in hopeless and helpless confusion. 
Nowhere in the whole Imperial army was there an organization 
worth its uniform save and alone those few Austrians and Hunga- 
rians personally devoted to the Emperor and calmly resolved to die. 
If at any time Shelby's conversation ever recurred to him, he made 
no sign. He saw probably, and felt more keenly than any one there 
the need of the American corps Shelby could and w,ould have 
recruiting for the asking, buteveninthe death hour, and in front of 
the ruined v/all at Queretaro, he died as he had lived — a martyr to 
his belief in the sincerity of Mexican professions. 

Of a sudden, and at one merciless blow, Sonora was wrenched 
from the grasp of the Empire. The French had already abandoned 
it, but an Austrian, devoted to the Empire, General Landberg, held it 
for his Majesty. The forces under his command werecomposed almost 
exclusively of Mexicans. Some few companies of these had Ameri- 
can oflicers. One in particular was commanded by a young Confed- 
erate, Captain "VV. M. Burwell, who was from the Valley of Vir- 
ginia, and who had won high honor in Pelham's memorable artil- 
lery. He was only twenty, and had a face like a school girl. Tall, 
gentle in aspect and manner, with deep blue eyes and raven hair 
tbat curled and shone, he came into the Empire a boy adventurer, 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 395 

seeking fame and service in a foreign land. The Princess Iturbide, 
when the Valley of Virginia was a Paradise, had visited at his fath- 
er's house and had looked in admiration into the blue eyes of the 
beautiful boy. This boy, not yet a man and the smoke of Virginia 
battle-fields not yet gone f rem his long black hair, came to the coun- 
try of the Princess, and to her palace by the Alameda. When he 
came out from her presence he was a Captain. He put on his uni- 
form and came among his comrades in those few brief days, before 
the marching, a young Adonis— lithe, superb, a little Norman in 
feature, having red in his cheeks and dark in his hair. 

All day had the battle ebbed and flowed about the port of 
Guaymas. A swart, fierce southern sun, coming in red from the 
ocean, got hotter and hotter, and by high noon it was blistering in 
among the foothills that held the thin handful of Landberg's dis- 
solving army. Beautiful on the crest of the darkening conflict 
stood the young Virginian, no air brave enough anywhere to blow 
out the curls of his clustering hair, no succor anywhere near enough 
to saved the flushed cheeks from the gray and the pallor of the 
death that was near. Landberg fell in the thick of the fight, cheer- 
ing on his men who had fought well for Mexicans, but who had 
fought for all that as men who had no hope. A Frenchman, Colonel 
DeMarsang, rode to the front. The army was falling to pieces. 
On watch in the port of Guaymas two French frigates had been 
waiting since the sunrise. There stood safety and refuge for the 
shivered remnants when once well extricated from the coil that 
Landberg had failed to break, but how get through. De Marsang 
spoke to Burwell, saluting: 

• • Will your men charge? " 

" It may be. Colonel. Your orders." 

"Yonder is a battery on a hill," pointing as he spoke to four six- 
teen pounders massed upon an eminence that commanded the only 
road of retreat to Guaymas, " and it is scant of supporters. Silence 
it for a brief half hour and what is left of Landberg's loyal follow- 
ers shall be saved." 

Burwell drew his sword. He spoke to his men very gently. He 
put himself at their head. There was a sudden rush of some fifty 
or sixty desparate soldiers— amass of blue and flame and dust and 
fiiry— the great roar of the guns broke hoarse and loud above the 
shrill, fierce cheer of the men, and the road was clear. 

They brought him back from the rout of the cannoniers with a 
film on the blue eyes and white on the pallid cheeks. He spoke not, 
neither did he make moan. To-day in Guaymas there are yet those 
who cross themselves and tell with bated breath about the charge of 
the muy honita Americano. 

Sonora was thus lost to Maximilian, and all the coast bordering 
upon the Pacific. In the north, department after department was 



396 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

abandoned by the French, and at Matamoras, after a bloody siege 
and a desperate combat at the end, Mejia — an Indian of pure blood 
and truer and braver than all the multitude of Castilian flatteries 
who blessed the Emperor and fled from him when the darkness came 
— cut his way out from environment and fell back wearily and haid 
bestead toward Monterey. In the passage out through the lines of 
Escobcdo's army, an American squadron died nearly to a man. It 
had been recruited upon the Rio Grande, and was composed equally 
of those who had served in either the Federal or Confederate army. 
Its Captain, Hardcastle, was one of Hooker's best scouts ; one Lieu- 
tenant, Inge, had made himself a name with Mosby ; another, Sars- 
field, an Irishman from Memphis, had killed a comrade in a duel 
in Georgia, and had fled as it were from a spectre which pursued 
him; seven of the privates had but an arm apiece; all had seen long 
and desperate service — all were soldiers who seemed to have no 
home and no country. 

Children of the war, what a life history many of them had. It is 
related of the little band that, the night before Mejia began the work 
that had need to be ended speedily, they exchanged with one another 
the secret of each heart. Sorrows had come to the most of them, 
and memories that were too sad for repining, too bitter for tender- 
ness or tears. A boy was there not yet twenty. He had been a 
soldier under Lee and had loved a woman older and wiser than 
himself. One day he told her all and she laughed in his beardless 
face, a laugh that went deeper than any word of cold contempt or 
stern refusal. He was too young, she said. He knew she meant 
too poor. The morning after the interview, while it was yet dusky 
and dim in the east, a firm, set face was turned fair to the south, 
and James Randolph had left his native land forever. Among the 
foremost in the charge, and when the force of the squadron had 
spent itself, he was taken up dead from among the feet of the 
horses, happier than he had been, perhaps, since the parting months 
agone. 

One was there because a life of peace had become intolerable. 
Hardcastle, a born soldier, fought for the love of the strife; Inge, to 
better his fortune ; Sarsfield, to exorcise a memory that made his 
sensitive life a burden; a few for greed and gain; not any one for 
hatred or revenge. 

]\[ejia loved his Americans, and had done a General's part by 
them. None rode finer horses, none displayed more serviceable 
arms. What they had to do they did, so terribly that none ever 
rose up to question the act. On guard they were never surprised; 
on their honor, they never betrayed; on duty, they never knew an 
hour of rest; on the foray, they kept a rank no stress had ever yet 
destroyed, and in the fight, when others halted or went forward, as 
those who grope, these — grim, silent, impassible as fate — rode 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 897 

Straight on; resisted, very well; verpowered, still very well; 
cut to pieces— that might be. Having shaken hands with life, what 
meant a few days more or less to all who saw the end approaching. 

Escobedo had surrounded Matamoras with about 25,000 troops, 
not good troops, however, but hard to dislodge from the fortifica- 
tions in which they had encased themselves. To get out, Mejia had 
to cut his way through. The American squadron went first. There 
was a heavy fog that had blown in from the gulf on the morning of 
the venture, so heavy, indeed, that the first tiles could not seethe 
third files, northe third the fifth, nor the Captain his Lieutenants in 
their places behind him. 

No matter; a squadron like this did not need the sunlight in 
which to die. 

It took an hour of furious work to open the only road between 
Mejia and Monterey— between a massacre as ferocious as the nature 
of the bandit, Escobedo, and the succor of Jeanningros' Zouaves 
marching twenty leagues in twenty hours to the rescue. Out of 
seventy-two, rank and file, only eleven escaped free and scathless. 
Afterward, in relating the story of the escape. General Mejia 
remarked sententiously to Governor Reynolds : 

" To maintain an empire it is necessary only for a score of 
regiments, such as the squadron that charged at my command nine 
separate times, losing always and always closing up." 

To-day it is doubtful if any man knows where even one of the 
heroes lies buried, nor aught of his inner life, nor anything of why 
or how he died. 

" So much the leaden dice of war 
Do make or mar of character." 

In the height of the tide of evacuation, Maximilian turned his 
eyes once more in the direction of the colonists. A French Baron, 
Sauvage by name, and an Englishman in finance and education, 
obtained from the Emperor a grant of land as large about as the 
State of Delaware. It was rare and valuable land. It grew India- 
rubber trees and mahogany trees. It was in the tropics, and it was 
fertile beyond all comparison. The Tuspan river ran through the 
grant diagonally from northwest to southeast. It had a seaport — 
Tampico — where the largest vessels might ride at anchor, and where 
only in the unusually sickly years did the yellow fever come at all. 

Several tribes of Indians inhabited this section of the Empire, 
mostly ignorant and unknown Indians, yet supposed to be friendly 
and well disposed. At least the death of no w^hite man had been 
laid at the door of any of the tribes, probably from the fact that no 
white man had evel been among them. 

Sauvage dreaded Indians because he had never dea with them. 
He was a cultivated and elegant gentleman. He loved to linger 
long at dinner and late over the wine, to take his ease in his own 



398 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

way and to protect his person. He wanted a partner who, used to 
peril and privation, would not object to the life of a pioneer. 
Shelby was recommended. Freighting was no longer pleasant or 
profitable. Concentrated now principally in the cities, the French 
did not attempt to patrol the roads nor to afford protection to those 
who lived away from he garrisoned towns and who needed protec- 
tion. As a consequence, Shelby and his partner. Major McMurty, 
disposed of such stook as was left to them after the rigors of the 
rainy season and cast about for other work neither so difficult nor 
so uncertain. 

Shelby met Sauvage, and when the interview was over a scheme 
of colonization was formed which needed only time to have added 
to the Empire a bulwark that might have proved impregnable. Sur- 
veyors under the charge of Major R. J. Lawrence, once a resident 
of Kansas City, were dispatched immediately to the granted lands. 
A railroad from Tampico to Vera Cruz was projected and a subsidy 
at the rate of $20,000 per mile pledged by the Emperor. With 
Shelby to plan was to execute. Two hundred men were employed 
before the ink of the alliance between himself and Sauvage was 
scarcely dry. Taking passage in a rickety schooner to Havana, 
Shelby bought a seaworthy sail-boat there and loaded the boat at 
once with American plows, harrows, railroad tools of all kinds, and 
staple provisions enough for a summer's campaign. At the same 
time he also flooded Texas and, Arkansas with his circulars settiDg 
forth the advantages of the Tuspan country, its immense resources, 
the benefits a colonist might receive from a location there, and giving 
also the nature and quality of the soil, its products and the average 
price per acre under the Imperial decree confirming the grant. The 
circular soon begot an interest that was intense. Twenty families in a 
neighborhood would unite and send an agent forward to investigate 
the prospects of the colony. Meanwhile the railroad was com- 
menced. From Havana Shelby went to Vera Cruz, where he pur- 
chased another schooner belonging to the French fleet of observa- 
tion in the harbor. Bazaine was in the city when he arrived in 
port. He went straight up to his hotel and spoke to him thus: 

"Marshal, we have taken upon our hands much work. We 
have farming implements of all kinds, but we have no guns. Give 
us arms and ammunition. Your army of occupation has recently 
been supplied with Chassepots, and it is not your intention to take 
your old muskets back to France. Some you will sell, some you 
will destroy, and some you will give away. Give me, therefore, 
five hundred of your most serviceable, and ball cartridges enough 
for a six month's siege, and when you hear of our colony again you 
will hear of a place as promising as the scheme of your Emperor 
in Africa." 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 899 

Bazaine listened to this frank volubility as one does to some- 
thing he has but rarely heard in his life, smiled, shrugged his 
shoulders, but gave the order just the same. Before the sun set, 
Shelby was sailing out from the harbor and past the dark battle- 
ments of San Juan d'Ulloa, the owner of half a thousand elegant 
guns, a great store of ammunition, and a faith in the future that 
amounted with him to an inspiration. 

The Americans flocked to him from every direction. His name 
and his fame seemed a talisman. As fast as they arrived he armed 
them, and it was well that he did so. A tribe of Indians, the Tolucas, 
owning lands directly on the northern boundary of the grant, grew 
jealous of a sudden at the growing colony, and sought to extermi- 
nate it. There were bad Mexicans among them who did the schem- 
ing and the plotting, and one rainy night a foray of elevtn hundred 
dashed down upon the outposts. Shelby was with his surveying 
party at the time, a little detachment scarcely thirty strong. These 
fortified themselves behind a breastwork of logs, and fought until 
the settlement could be aroused. When the reinforcements were 
all up, Shelby massed them compactly together, and dashed down 
upon the invaders. They fought badly, and soon broke and fled. 
For thirty long and weary miles he followed them through swamp 
and chaparal, over ravines and rivers, by day and by night, killing 
what came to him, sparing naught that fell in his way. Weary, 
the men declared the work done well enough. He ordered them 
forward fiercely. 

" What," he cried out, " is the necessity of doing to-morrow or 
the next day what could be so well done to-day? The colony is 
young, it is hated, it has been in perpetual ambush; it must have 
over it a mantle of blood. Forward, and spare not." 

The blow dealt the Tolucas was a terrible one, but it was neces- 
sary. Thereafter they traded in peace with the whites, and main- 
tained the alliance unbroken until the colony itself was destroyed, 
and the Americans driven out from all part or lot in the country. 

Through no fault of any American there, however, the colony 
did not live. Shelby did the work of a giant. He was alcalde, 
magistrate, patriarch, contractor, surveyor, physician, interpreter, 
soldier, lawgiver, mediator, benefactor, autocrat, everything. All 
things that were possible were accomplished. Settlers came in and 
had lands given them. The schooners were loaded with tropical 
fruits and sent to New Orleans. When they returned they were 
filled with emigrants. The railroad took unto itself length and 
breadth and crept slowly through morass and jungle toward Vera 
Cruz. Disease also decimated. The rank forests, the tropical sun. 
the hardships and exposures of the new and laborious life told 
heavily against the men, and many whom the bullet had spared 
the fever finished. The living, however, took the place of the 
dead, and the work went on. 



400 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO: 

One day news came that the French garrison at Correzetla had 
marched at sunset for the Capital. Of all the good five hundred foot 
and horse not even so much as a saber or a sabertash remained to 
hold the mountain line between the guerrillas of the south and the 
little handful of pioneers hewing away in the wilderness of mahog- 
any, toiling by day and standing guard by night. It could not be 
far to the end. A. sudden irruption of robbers, quite two thousand 
strong, poured through the gaps in the broken and higher country, 
and drove rapidly in all tne outlying posts along the frontier. If 
any settler there, tarrying late to save from the wreck whatever was 
valuable or dear to him, fell into their hands, it was a rope, a dog's 
death, and a grave that hid in it neither cofiln nor shroud. Death 
to the Gringo came on every breeze that swept to the sea. 

Shelby knew that the beginning of the end was at hand, and that 
he had great need to bring back from the overthrow all that was 
worth a stroke for rescue. He met this last danger as he had met 
all others, with arms in his hand. He massed once more his mov- 
able columns and fought as he fell back in front of his sick and his 
helpless, dealing such blows as became one who fel that the sun had 
been turned away from him, and that thereafter it would be neither 
a cloudless sky nor a peaceful twilight. 

The citizens rose in the town of Tampico when it was known 
that the French had retired, and seized upon the schooners at 
anchor off the bar. Some among their crew made battle and died 
in vain and in discharge of a duty that had neither country nor cause 
to remember and reward it. When the vessels were burned their 
corpses were thrown headlong into the sea. Nothing survived the 
inundation. The fields were all laid waste the habitations were all 
pillaged and destroyed, what remained of the farming implements 
were broken to pieces, the luxuriant growth of the tropics sprang up 
in a night as it were, and hid the work of the devoted colonists. 
There was a moment of savage exultation over the wreck and the 
ruin of the beautiful valley and to-day all the magnificent land 
watered by the Tuspan river lies out under the sun, a waste place 
and a wilderness. Worn by long marching and fighting, the sur- 
vivors found refuge at last in Cordova, homeless, penniless, and 
strangers in a strange land. 

And death came, too, to one among the exiles who had cast in 
his lot in their midst as a Christian hero, and who had fought the 
fight the hero always fights. Henry Watkins Allen, ex-Governor 
of Louisiana, and a general of brigade in the Confederate army, was 
carried up from the lowlands of the Gulf to die. Shattered by 
wounds, and broken in health and fortune, he bore so bravely up 
that none knew, not even those who knew him best, how weak was 
the poor tried frame, and how clearly outlined to his ownvision 
was the invisible angel of the somber wings. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAP OF THE WAR. 401 

Selected by the Emperor to publish a newspaper in the English 
language and in the interest of the Empire and colonization, he had 
founded the Mexican Times, and had labored faithfully for the 
stability of the Government and the development of its mineral 
resources. Singularly gentle and lovable for one so desperately 
brave, he gave his whole time to the labors of his position, and toiled 
faithfully on in the work taken upon his hands to do. The Ameri- 
cans looked upon him as an adviser and friend. Marshal Bazaine 
counseled with him and bestowed upon him his confidence, and 
Maximilian trusted him as he would a household officer or aide. 
His charities were unostentatious and manifold. He delighted in 
giving his scanty means, and in keeping from his left hand what 
his right hand contributed. He wrote boldly and to the point. In 
the army his record had been one of extraordinary daring in a corps 
where all had been brave. Badly wounded at Shiloh, he kept his 
saddle until the battle was over, and led his troops the long day 
through, as though impervious to human weakness or physical 
pain. Later, at Baton Rouge, under Breckenridge, he had made a 
charge upon a battery, the fame of which filled the West. The guns 
were taken in the terrible contest, but Allen was lifted up from 
among his horse's feet, maimed, inert, speechless, almost dead. 
Three bullets from a canister shot had penetrated both legs, shat- 
tered the bones of one of them, and wounded him so desperately 
that for five months it was an almost hopeless struggle for life. To 
the last he was a sufferer and an invalid. 

Having occasion to visit Vera Cruz on business during the height 
of the yellow fever, the hand of death was laid gently and silently 
upon him, and he returned to the City of Mexico to die. The con- 
flict did not last long. What could the emaciated soldier do in the 
grasp of one so relentless and so fierce? The old wound bled 
afresh, and the old weakness had never left him. Bazaine sent to 
him his own physician. All that skill could do was done; all that 
tenderness or affection could suggest was performed. In vain. The 
good man died as he had lived, in peace with the world and with 
the good God who had afflicted him sorely in His own wise way, and 
who carried his soul straight to heaven. 

The work of evacuation went steadily on. As the French 
retired, city after city received the Liberals with many demonstra- 
tions of joy. In some of these, also, those Mexicans who had sym- 
pathized with the Empire were cruelly treated; in others they were 
imprisoned or shot. The armies of Juarez were recruited by a levy 
en masse of all capable of bearing arms in the territory overrun by 
his ragamuffins. American sympathy was not wanting. Whatever 
in the way of arms, ammunition, supplies or clothing was needed, 
was bountifully supplied. A picked detachment of Californians, 
three squadrons strong, formed a desperate bodyguard for the 



402 SIIELBl'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

President. Unquestior.iDg as fate, they did his bidding even to 
torture and to masp.icre. They were feared and hated of the 
nation. 

A blow fell now, ar^d fell suddenly, upon the colony of Carlota. 
The name itself, of all names, was the most fatal, and it appeased 
somewhat the fierce hatred of the born robbers and traitors, who 
hated everything noble or true, to plunder all who were unresist irg 
or defenseless, and who had over them the blessing of the stricken 
woman of Miramar. 

In a night the labor and toil of a long year were utterly broken 
up and destroyed. A band of freebooters from the mountains, 
nearly two thousand strong, poured down through the gap the 
French had left unprotected, and the pillage was utter and com- 
plete. Quite an hundred colonists, males all of them, were cap- 
tured in the night and marched far into the gloomy places and 
recesses of the mountains. Their sufferings were terrible. Bare- 
footed, days without food, beaten with sabers and pricked with 
lances, some few died and the rest, after a month of barbarous cap- 
tivity, made their way back to the French lines, scarcely more than 
alive. All had been robbed, many had been stripped. Those who 
survived the blow and the thrust were but few — those who were 
naked were the most numerous. 

The blow finished the colony. The farming implements were 
destroyed, the stock was slaughtered in the fields, the cabins were 
burnt, the growing crops beaten down under the feet of the horses, 
and what the hurrying cavalry spared the winds and the torches 
finished. Nobody pitied the Americans. In the upheaval of all 
stable things, and in the ever-increasing contraction of the Imperial 
circle, what mattered a robbery more or less. The days of the col- 
onists were numbered when the French vessel that bore Castelnau 
anchored off the mole at Vera Cruz. 

Still, however, the Americans were here and there in demand. 
An English company owning valuable silver mines at Pachuca, felt 
the terror of the French withdrawal, and sought for something 
stronger to rely upon than Mexican manhood. Colonel Robert C. 
Wood was in the City of Mexico at the time and was called upon to 
take command of the Company's forces. These were peons and 
miners. He recruited in addition a dozen Americans and went 
down to Pachuca to look after the silver deposits entrusted to his 
keeping. Vast masses of enormously rich ore, cut off from the 
seaports because of the revolution going on in the land, were piled 
up in huge heaps awaiting shipment Wood took a look at it all 
and turned to its owner, an old Englishman, nervous but brave: 

" How much is it all worth?" 

" Well on to a million," 

" They will come for it strong, then — the robbers?" 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 403 

" No, not for the silver ore, but for a ransom. I could stand one, 
or two, or three among the chiefs and pay them all well, but up 
among the hundreds it is impossible." 

Wood took command and went to fortifying. The third day he 
found himself surrounded. A summons to surrender came. Before 
firing a gun a Mexican always seeks to arrange a capitulation. 
Palaver, from his own strong term palabres, means after all nothing 
but words, words, words, in the rugged old Spanish. Since the com- 
mander was not influenced to surrender, he had but one thing to do 
— he fought like a tiger. In the end the first robber chief was driven 
away, for the Englishman's habitation was a fort, an arsenal, a store- 
house, and a silver mine. Others advanced to the attack, but Wood 
held on for three weeks, fighting every day, and keeping his own 
right royally. The siege might have lasted longer, but Mendez, an 
Imperial Mexican, swept dow^n from the Capitol and drove before 
him like chaff the robber bands, preying alike upon the innocent and 
the guilty. Colonel Wood marched out with the honors of war, the 
Englishman made his voyage sure to Vera Cruz ; there was no more 
fighting about Pachuca, but there was no more silver ore as well. 

As the news of reverse after reverse came to Maximilian, he 
turned once more his despairing eyes toward the Americans, and 
sought among them for the nucleus of a corps. He sent for Shelby, 
who was at Cordova, and had him to come post haste. Feeling that 
it was too late, Shelby yet answered the summons with alacrity, and 
presented himself to the Emperor. 

The interview was brief, but, brief as it was. it was almost sad. 

" How many Americans are yet in the country? " the Emperor 
inquired. 

"Not enough for a corporal's guard," was Shelby's frank reply; 
"and the few who are left can not be utilized. Your Majesty has 
put off too long the inauguration of a plan which, while it might 
not have given you as many soldiers as France, would at least have 
restored a formidable rallying point, and stayed for a time the 
tide of reverses that is rising all over Mexico. I don't know of 200 
effective men among my countrymen who could be got together 
before the evacuation is complete." 

"I need 20,000," the Emperor rejoined, as one who talked 
mechanically. 

"Yes, 40,000. Of all the Imperial regiments in your service, 
you cannot count upon one that will stand fast to the end. What 
are the tidings? In Gaudalajara, desertion; in Colima, desertion; 
in Durango, Zecatecas, San Luis Potosi, Matehuala — it is nothing 
but desertion, desertion. As I came in I saw the Regiment of the 
Empress marching out. You will pardon me if I speak the truth, 
but as devoted as that Regiment should be, I would call upon your 
Majesty to beware of it. When the need is greatest its loyalty will 



404 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

• 
be- most iu doubt. Keep witli you constantly all the household troops 
ttiatyet belong to the Empire, Do not waste them iu doubtful bat- 
th's. Do not divide them among important towns. The hour is at 
hand when instead of numbers you will l\^ve to rely upon devotion. 
I am but as one man, but whatever a single subject can do that thing 
shall be done to the utmost." 

The E.uperor mused some little time in silence. When he spoke 
again it was in a voice so sad as to be almost pitiful. 

" It is so refreshing to hear the truth," he said, "and I feel that 
you have told it to me as one who neither fears nor flatters. Take 
this in parting, and remember that circumstances never render impos- 
sible the right to die for a great principle." 

As the Emperor spoke he detached the golden cross of the Order 
of Guadalupe from his breast and gave it into the hands of Shelby. 

He has it yet, a precious souvenir — the sole memento of a part- 
ing that for both was the last on earth. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

It was in these last days of the Empire that General J. A. Early, 
a noble Southern Tacitus, came over from Havana to Mexico. His 
journey from the United States had been a romantic one. After 
Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, General Early, with 
the keen eye of a thorough sportsman, had selected a horse in Vir- 
ginia that in every way suited his ideas of a horse. Above all 
things he wanted one full of action and endurance. The ride before 
him was from ocean to ocean, as it were, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. Having on nothing that would stand in the shape of the 
uniform of a soldier, and a good enough looking citizen in all 
except the bronze of his rough campaigning, he rode through Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, through Tennessee and Mississippi, into 
Arkinsas, and across it into Texas, and on through outlying bands 
of guerrillas and robbers to the port of Matamoras. Sometimes he 
went hungry for bread. For days together he had no shelter. He 
spoke but two words of Spanish, and those contemptuously, 
because the words themselves expressed so aptly the Mexican's idea 
of eternal procrastination. He got along somehow, however, and 
made his appearance to the few who were left among the Mexicans, 
as full of the fire of war, and as indifferent to either extreme of 
fortune as when amid the echoes of the long and perilous battle he 
had seen victory come and go, at one time his hand maiden, at 
another his Delilah. 

General Early, even then, had written his book reviewing the 
military campaigns of Sheridan in the Valley of Virginia, Some 
articles had appeared in the American press not exactly between 
them, but about them. Each had written freely of each. Each 
was a man who followed up his words, if need be, with blows. He 
disliked skirmishing very much, that was only skirmishing, so he 
concluded to go over to Havana and challenge Sheridan. He 
argued that Sheridan was an Irishman, that he probably would not 
be averse to the operations of the code, that he was personally 
braveand that a shot or two between them, while it might not 
settle a single point at issue, would at least clear up the 
atmosphere of the correspondence a little, and round off some of 
the angularities of the two antagonistic natures. He was over- 
psrsuaded, however, and did not send the challenge. He returned 
to Canada, published his book, told some very necessary yet unpal- 
atable truths, and has remained on duty ever since, a watchful sen- 
tinel over Southern honor as amplified and exemplified by Southern 
history. 

405 



406 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

Foreigners of all nations now began to put each his house in 
order. None had faith in the Empire, none believed that it could 
survive the shock of the French withdrawal three months. Max- 
imilian had no money. He was suspicioned of the church. The 
Archbishop was his enemy. His wife, really and truly his better 
half, his noble, selfsacrificing, heroic Carlota, was dead to him, to 
his love, to whatever of triumph or despair the future had in store 
for him. The dark hour was upon Saul. Shrouded in the mental 
blackness of a great darkness, Maximilian, as he always did when 
he was hard hunted, fled to Cuernavaca. He remained three days, 
the prey of conflicting emotions, and the one isolated and deso- 
late figure in a land that had in it the birds and the odors of Para- 
dise. 

When he returned he had taken uponhimself a sudden resolution. 
He would leave the country, too, he had said to some of his nearest 
followers. The Emperor Napoleon had urged him to retire with the 
French. The Emperor of Austria had done the same, so had the 
Queen of England, so hadBazaine, so had everybody, who knew how 
the scholar, and the gentleman would at last be destroyed in a contact 
with brute force, ignorance and cupidity. There can be no doubt 
whatever of the Emperor's intention at this time to abandon Mexico. 
The condition of his wife's health, the attitude of the Catholic 
Church, his empty treasury, the mutiny and disaffection among his 
native regiments, the baseness, corruption and falsehood on every 
hand, so impressed him at last that a great reaction came and a 
great disgust for the people whose cause he had espoused and 
whose country he had endeavored to pacify and redeem. He retired 
suddenly to Orizava, a city two days' journey toward Vera Cruz. 
The movement was ominous, and a great fear fell upon those among 
the Imperialists who had yet the manhood and the decency to thus 
preserve the semblance of affection. Generals Miramon and 
Marquez went to him at once. Long consultations followed, and 
the result arrived at was a decree on the part of the Emperor 
convoking a national Congress, on the most ample and liberal 
basis, wherein all political parties might participate. On the 12th 
of October, 1866, the Emperor returned to Pueblo, one day's 
journey toward the Capital, one day's journey farther from the sea- 
coast. The Imperialists again took courage. On the 5th of January, 
1867, the Emperor returned again to Mexico. 

During his stay in Orizaba, his Majesty had a long and confi- 
dential interview with Governor Thomas C. Reynolds. He had 
been in the habit of consulting him upon various occasions, and had 
in more than one instance followed the advice given by this remark- 
able, clearh-eaded and conscientious man. To Reynolds he 
unbosomed himself fully and without reserve. He dwelt upon the 
condition of the country and the apparent hopelessness of the effort 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 407 

he was making to maintain liimself . He complained that he had no 
advisers who understood the nature of the surroundings, and who 
could give a sensible and patriotic reason for anything. He wanted 
sympathy really as much as he did advice, and Reynolds gave him 
both. He urged upon him the necessity of remaining in Mexico 
and of dying, if needs be, for his kingdom and his crown. Reynolds 
also recalled briefly the history of his ancestors, the names great 
among the greatest of his race, and reminded him as delicately as 
possible, yet very firmly, that, Hapsburg as he was, he had need but 
of two things— to perish or succeed. There was a sacred duty he 
owed, first to his name, and then to those other young and daunt- 
less spirits who had followed him across the ocean and who could 
not be abandoned to be destroyed. Men of the Hapsburg race 
either conquered destiny or were conquered by it in war harness and 
in front of the fight. Standing or falling, he should head his armies 
and trust himself, as his ancestors had done before him, to the God 
of battles and the sword. 

Maximilian returned to the City of Mexico, as has been already 
stated, on the 5th of January, 1866. On the 6th of February, of the 
same year, the French troops left the Capital. The Congress pro- 
vided for at the Council of Orizava, owing to the deplorable condi- 
tion of the country, did not meet. War was in the land, and rapine, 
and the slaughter of those who did not resist, nor yet had any arms 
in their hands. Bazaine, the night before the evacuation of the 
city, sought a private interview with the Emperor, and had it 
granted far into the morning. As a soldier he reasoned with the 
Emperor simply as a soldier. Treating the whole question at issue 
as one of men and means entirely, he demonstrated how futile all 
resistance would be, and how utterly impossible it was to maintain 
an alien government without an army. Having his mind made up, 
however, with the fixedness of desperation, Maximilian took no 
heed of Bazaine's inexorable logic. The two parted coldly, never 
to meet again, but not as enemies. The Marshal pitied the Emperor, 
the Emperor smiled upon the Marshal. In the presence of death, 
the man who can smile and forgive upon earth, is already forgiven 
in heaven. 

If there were any Mexicans now in the Empire really devoted to 
Maximilian they made no effort to sustain him. As the French 
lines receded the lines of Juarez moved up and occupied every- 
thing. Regim'ents deserted in a body, garrisoned towns were given 
up, the native troops would not fight again s native troops— all cohe- 
siveness was gone. There was no discipline ; it was dark in every 
quarter, and the time for giants to arise was near at hand. In this 
condition of the country Maximilian took the field. 

From the first he led a forlorn hope. The whole Imperial fabric, 
unsupported by French bayonets, literally fell to pieces. Miramon 



408 SHELBYVS EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

was defeated in Durango; Mendez had to retreat from the South; 
Marquez lost Pueblo and the outlying towns about the Capital; 
from a force amounting to fifty thousand men on paper, Maximilian, 
all told, and when every General and every detachment was in at 
Queretaro, could not, if he had tried, have counted nine thousand 
soldiers, who had faith in the destiny of the Empire, and who knew 
how to die for it. 

On the 13th of February, 1866. the Emperor, leaving Marquez 
in command of the City of Mexico, concluded to take command of 
the army in the field. Accordingly , on that day he marched north- 
ward. The force under him numbered barely eighteen hundred, 
and was composed equally of the three arms, infantry, cavalry and 
artillery. 

The first day's march brought slight skirmishing; on the fourth 
day the skirmishing grew suddenly heavy and hot; the Hungarians 
of his body guard made a splendid charge, the road was tolerably 
well cleared, and on the morning of the 19th, amid the ringing of 
innumerable bells and the noisy demonstrations of a vast multitude, 
the Emperor entered the city of Queretaro. 

It was an historical city, this of Queretaro. Fifty-seven leagues 
from tl^e Capital, it had been founded about the year 1445, and was 
a part of the empire of Montezuma I. A Spaniard, Fernando de 
Tapia, conquered it in 1531, and conferred upon it the name of 
Santiago de Queretaro — or, in the Tarasco idiom, a place where ball 
was played. 

Ominous christening ! The ball now about to be played was with 
those iron ones men play with death when death, must win. 

The population of Queretaro was fully fifty thousand, and dur- 
ing the war with the United States the Mexican Congress held its 
sessions there. Afterward, in 1848, the commissioners of peace 
assembled there and signed the famous treaty of Hidalgo. 

The Emperor was no soldier, and yet he believed some fortifica- 
tions were necessary to protect his inferior force from the greatly 
superior force he knew was rushing to overwhelm him from every 
portion of the Empire. From the 1st of March to the 16th he worked 
like a grenadier He rarely slept. He ate as the men did, fared 
alike with his soldiers, he appealed to them as a comrade, led them 
forward as a king, and was beloved beyond all. 

On the 14th of March General Escobedo, at the head of thirty 
thousand Mexicans, moved down from the north and invested the 
city. Here was one who had never known an hour of mercy; who 
had iron gray hair; who was angular and gaunt; who lived much 
alone, suspicioned all men; who had been known to have rivals poi- 
soned; who hated the French worse than the Austrians, the Ameri- 
cans worse than the French, and who was a coward. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 409 

On the 14th of March the city was attacked — thirty thousand 
against nine thousand. All day long the Emperor was under fire. 
At night he took no rest. Brave, modest, gentle, no exposure was 
too great for him — no personal hazard accounted a feather's weight 
in the scale of the day's doubtful fortunes. 

Not yet satisfied of his grip upon the town, Escobedo retired worst- 
ed. The grim lines of circumvallation, however, grew stronger day 
by day, and to the siege of the place a tide of soldiers poured con- 
stantly in, armed in all fashions, ragged, hungry for food, ravenous. 
It mattered not for guns. They had strength, and they could: dig to 
keep well at bay those who, sooner or later, had to come out or 
starve. 

Succor was needed, and on the 22d of March, at the head of one 
thousand mounted men. General Marquez, at the command of the 
Emperor, started to the Capital. He was to procure men, provisions 
and munitions of war, and|he was to return within fifteen days. All 
his orders were explicit. If he had not men enough to garrison and 
defend the City of Mexico, and also to increase his force sufficiently 
for the defense of Queretaro, then he was to abandon Mexico, and 
return with every soldier and every round of ammunition he could 
raise to the headquarters of the Emperor. The Emperor also con- 
ferred upon Marquez the title of Lugar Teniente, or what is usually 
translated as meaning Lieutenant General. It does mean this, and 
mich more. Such an officer, in the absence of the sovereign, takes 
his place, and is recognized and obeyed accordingly. He has the 
absolute power of life and death in his hands, can declare war, appro- 
priate money, make treaties, act, in short, as an absolute and unques- 
tioned autocrat, and then in the end explain nothing. 

Marquez never returned to Queretaro. Was he a traitor? In 
the peculiarly expressive language of the race to which he belonged, 
the answer is only a shrug of the shoulders and a quien sabe. In a 
nation of traitors, what matters one or two more or less ? Marquez 
not only did not report, but such were the infamies of his reign in 
Mexico, and such the outrages and oppressions he put upon the 
people, that many, even in the last sad days of the Empire — many, 
indeed, who were faithful and pure of heart — rose up to curse Maxi- 
milian, and to rejoice when the couriers came riding southward, 
telling of how the work was done. 

On the 27th of March a passable sortie was made. Two hundred 
Austrian Hussars, of the household troops, and a squadron or so of 
Hungarians, dashed across an open field at the charge, capturing 
two pieces of artillery and two hundred men. 

No succor came from the Capital. Marquez reached the City of 
Mexico in safety and increased his forces to four thousand soldiers, 
eight hundred of whom were Europeans. Instead of marching 
immediately northward to Queretaro, he marched directly south- 



410 SHELBY'S EXPr.DITION TO MEXICO; 

ward lo Pueblo, then held by an Imperial garrison, but closely 
besieged by General Porfirio Diaz. As Marquez approached, Diaz 
stormed the city, enlisted a large proportion of its defenders in his 
own ranks and turned savagely upon Marquez. He retreated at first 
without a battle. Diaz pressed him fiercely, some heavy skirmishing 
ensued, but in the end all opposition ceased, and the remnant of 
Maximilian's army cooped itself up within the walls of Mexico, and 
surrendered later at discretion. 

On the 14th of April, at Queretaro, the Emperor's forces made 
another sortie, taking nineteen guns and six hundred prisoners. It 
was then his intention to abandon this position and reach Mexico 
by forced and incessant marches. But upon ascertaining fully the 
results of the victory, and becoming thoroughly acquainted with its 
magnitude and effect, he countermanded the order of execution and 
tarried yet a while longer, hoping to hear something that would 
reassure him from other quarters. Finally abandoning all idea of 
succor from the movements of Marquez, he ordered Prince Salm 
Salm, on the night of the 17th, to go in quest of him, ascertain 
exactly his intentions, arrest and iron him if the need was, and 
bring back with him every available soldier possible under his com- 
mand. 

Prince Salm Salm, at the head of five hundred cavalry, sallied 
out precisely at midnight and advanced probably half a league. 
Suddenly a tremendous fire was opened upon him from artillery and 
infantry. Severely wounded in the foot himself, and satisfied from 
the force in position across his only road of exit that he could not 
get through, he returned within the lines, bafliled and demoralized. 

On the 1st of May still another sortie was attempted. Miramon 
led this, and led it badly. Two hours of desperate fighting gave 
him no advantage, and when at last he was forced back, it was with 
a precipitancy so great as to appear like a rout. 

The cloud of disaster now became darker and nearer. Maximil- 
ian bore up bravely. As long as his private funds lasted, he divided 
them among the sick and the wounded. Constantly in the front of 
the fight, and dauntless in the discharge of every duty, he com- 
manded, inspired, toiled and faced the inevitable as became the 
greatness of his nature and the magnitude of the interests at stake. 
He commanded scarcely nine thousand men. Foremost in the sor- 
ties, forming all the forlorn hopes, looking forward to the future 
only as those who had no future, his Europeans died and made no 
moan. Many near and dear to him had fallen. Some who had fol- 
lowed his fortunes in other lands and on seas full of wonderand 
peril, fell where could come to them neither friendly hand nor 
sepulchre. Those the enemy got they mutilated— those who dragge d 
themselves back from the battle's wreck, slowly and painfully, had 
the prayer of the priest and the last warm grasp of a kingly hand. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 411 

These were all — but to these poor, faithful, simple-minded soldiers, 
these were a great deal. 

On the morning of the 13th of May, Maximilian determined, 
when the night came, to abandon the city of Queretaro. Having 
yet, however, to arm some three thousand citizens, the evacu- 
ation was postponed. On the evening of the 14th, Miramon came 
to the Emperor and suggested to him the importance of calling 
a council composed of all the Generals of the army. Above 
all things it was necessary to have unity of action, and this could 
best be done after a full and free interchange of opinion was 
indulged in. The Emperor consented, and in consenting signed 
his death warrant. 

Before the consultation was had, the Emperor turned his honest, 
clear blue eyes upon the face of Colonel Lopez, commander of the 
Empress' Regiment, and said to him very gently, as he laid his hand, 
comrade fashion, upon his shoulder, decorated with the epaulettes 
the Empress herself had braided : 

" Tou need take no concern about the march. Your regiment 
has been detailed as my especial escort." 

The Judas smiled as all Judases have done for six thousand 
years, and went his way to betray him. 

The Generals met during the day of the 14th, and resolved to 
march out from Queretaro at eleven o'clock that night. When the 
time came the volunteers were still unarmed, and some of the Gen- 
erals asked the delay of another day. General Mendcz, also, a 
gallant and devoted oflQcer, being quite unwell and unable to ride, 
sent Colonel Redonet to the Emperor with a petition asking for 
further time that he might conquer his malady and lead his old 
brigade in person. 

Maximilian yielded to these urgent solicitations and fixed at 
last positively upon the night of the 15th. 

Full fifty thousand men now invested Queretaro. Corona, a 
General of more than ordinary Mexican ability, came down from 
Durango and joined his forces to those of Escobedo. The lines of 
investment were complete — fifty thousand besieging nine thousand. 

About the headquarters of Maximilian all was silence and 
expectancy. General Castillo, of the Imperial staff, conveyed to 
the various officers, secretly and verbally, the orders for the night. 
Nowhere did the gleaming of camp fires appear. The infantry 
were to carry their cartridges and blankets, the cannon upon the 
fortifications were to be spiked and the magazines flooded. Some 
eight and ten-pounders, dismounted and packed on mules, together 
with light supplies of grape and canister, completed the arm of 
resistance in the way of artillery. 

On the west and directly in front of the lines held by Corona the 
entire garrison was to be concentrated. Thence pouring out through 



413 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

the night — surprising, stabbing, bayoneting, gaining the rugged 
defiles of the Sierra Gorda — there was slight work thereafter in 
laying hands upon succor and safety. 

Twelve hundred armed citizens of Queretaro were to remain 
behind and protect the people and the property of the city as far as 
might be. These, after twenty-four hours had passed, were to sur- 
render to General Escobedo. The Emperor retired at eight o'clock 
and slept until one. Prince Salm Salm, until twelve o'clock, was 
busy in arranging the private papers of Maximilian and in packing 
them in small canvas sacks that might be strapped to the saddles of 
the escort company. Many were busy in writing words of tender- 
ness and farewell. As there were no lights, the staff officers assisted 
each other by smoking cigarettes close to the paper that a few words 
might be scribbled by the fleeting and uncertain light. 

The sortie might have won. It was the last and only resort of 
nine thousand desperate men who had been starving, who in eleven 
days had only scant allowances of mule or horse meat, and who had 
been under fire long enough to be acclimated. 

It was not to be, however. Between one and two o'clock the 
traitor Lopez, having previously communicated with Escobedo, 
crept silently from his quarters and took his way through the dark 
and narrow streets of Queretaro. Colonel Garza, commanding the 
advance outposts of the investing army, met him first. Garza was 
an honorable soldier who despised the work he was engaged in, and 
the man who came to him in the midnight, a coward and a traitor. 
As he advanced to meet him he did not extend his hand, but said 
curtly: 

" You are expected. Such work as this needs to be done quickly." 

Garza reported with Lopez to General Veliz, a division comman- 
der. The three together visited Escobedo and returned almost 
directly, Garza having been ordered to follow the traitor with his 
command and do as he was bidden. 

There was a large church on the south called La Cruz, and near 
this church a hole in the wall of defense. Thither went Lopez, 
Veliz and Garza. Here Veliz halted, but Garza and Lopez went on. 
Be it remembered, also, that Lopez had been the officer of the day, 
that he was the highest just then in authority in the city, and that 
having the pass word, he could arrange the forces at pleasure, and 
transposB or withdraw posts and outposts as the exigencies of his 
terrible treason might demand. 

Whsn the nearest station of Imperial troops was reached, Garza 
halted his command. Lopez rode forward and asked of the officer 
on duty if there was any news. 

"None," was the reply. 

"Then parade your men and call the roll." 

This was done with military accuracy and speed. Afterward 
the detachment was marched to the rear of Garza, leaving him in 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 413 

possession of the fort. The Liberals -were iu Queretaro. The 
beginning- of the end was at hand. Other Liberal oftlcers were put 
in possession of other posts, and before an hour had passed the 
treachery was complete. As the Liberal forces entered the city, 
quite a number of the Imperial officers were awake. As they saw 
Colonel Rincon's regiment — a Liberal regiment of some celebrity — 
march by their barracks, they looked out carelessly and took no 
note. Some of their own troops, they imagined, were going by or 
getting ready for the sortie. 

By half past three o'clock fully two-thirds of the city was in 
possession of the Liberals. Suddenly and with great force all the 
church bells began to ring. The streets were filled with bodies of 
armed meu. Aides galloped hither and thither. Skirmishing shots 
broke out in every direction. There were cries, shouts, the blare 
of bugles, and from afar the heavy rumbling and dragging of 
artillery. 

Great confusion fell upon the Imperialists. Some thought that 
Marquez had returned, and had attacked and defeated Escobedo. 
Others, that it was only a fight at the outposts — many, that the short, 
hot work of the sortie had actually begun. And so it had, with the 
lines reversed. Lopez had an adjutant, a Pole named Yablonski, 
who was Mith him in his treasonable plot, but who yet sought to 
save the Emperor. Feigning sleep, he had not yet closed his eyes 
in slumber. All his senses were on the qui vive for the ringing of 
the bells that were to usher in the tragedy. The first echo brought 
him to his feet — erect, nervous, vigorous. 

Maximilian occupied the convent of La Cruz, and next to the 
room of the Emperor was that of his private secretary, Jose Elasio. 
Yablonski went close up to Blasio and whispered : 

" The enemy are in the garden; get up!" 

Half dressed and heavy with the deep sleep of exhaustion, Blasio 
staggered into the apartment of the Emperor. In a few moments 
Maximilian knew all. He was the coolest man there, and so sad 
and so gentle that it seemed as if he did not care to live. The con- 
vent was surrounded. Castillo, Guzman, Salm Salm and Padillo, 
ail officers who were quartered near the Emperor, walked into his 
presence. Padillo informed him that the enemy were in possession 
of the convent ; that ten pieces of artillery had been taken in its very 
plaza, and that all defense of the mere building itself was useless. 
Maximilian very quietly took up a brace of revolvers, handed one 
to Padillo, and went to the door of his room, followed by Padillo, 
Blasio and Salm Salm. " To go out here or to die is the only way," 
he said, and they crossed the corridor. 

A sentinel at the head of the steps halted them. Maximilian 
leveled his revolver. An officer of the Liberal army — a brave, 
chivalrous and heroic Mexican, supposed to be Col. Rincon— 



^'H SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

Struck T\iLli a strange and generous pity, cried out to the sen- 
tinel: 

•* Let them pass; they are citizens." 

Ill the PJaza a line of leveled muskets again came up in front of 
them. Capture was imminent — or death unknown and ignominious. 
Again Rincon spoke to the soldiers: 

" Let them pass; they are civilians." 

The lines opened and the Emperor, followed by his little escort, 
•reached the regiment of the Empress. Lopez, its Colonel and its 
betrayer, was at its head, mounted and ready for orders. A huge 
hill, El Cerro de las Campanas, was the rallying point now of 
Maximilian's confused, scattered and demoralized forces. Thither 
he hurried with what was left of this chosen body of his very house- 
hold's troops. On the way Castillo was met, who cried out: 

"All is lost. See, your Majesty, the enemy's force is coming very 
near." 

Just then a body of infantry was entering the Plaza. Mis- 
taken in their uniforms, and not aware of the extent and nature of 
the surprise, Maximilian exclaimed : 

"Thank God, our battalion of Municipal Guards are coming." 

The error, however, was soon discovered and the little party 
started again for the hill, El Cerro. Maximilian was on foot, A 
horse, however, was brought to him which he mounted, reigning it 
in and keeping pace with his companions. Lopez remained close to 
his side. Passing the house of one Rubio, a rich Mexican, though 
not an Imperialist, Lopez said to the Emperor: 

"Your majesty should enter here. In this way alone can you 
save yourself." 

Maximilian refused peremptorily, and issued his orders with 
singular calmness and clearness. Meeting Captain Jenero, General 
Castillo's adjutant, he bade him seek Miramon at once and order 
him to concentrate every available soldier upon El Cerro de las 
Campanas. To another officer he cried out: 

"Go among your men and talk to them. Expose your person 
and teach them how to die." 

On the summit of the hill there were only about one hundred and 
fifty men gathered. These, belonging principally to the infantry 
regiments, had strayed there more because of the observation the 
elevation afforded than of a knowledge that it was the rallying 
point. Not all of them had ammunition. Some, roused suddenly 
from sleep, had snatched up only their guns and rushed out alarmed 
into the night. Soon the cavalry of the Empress arrived, and, 
recognizing the Emperor, cheered for him bravely. This devotion 
touched him, and under the light of the stars he was seen to lift up 
his hat and bow his head. 

Was he thinking of Carlota? 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 415 

Miramon did not come. The firing grew heavier in every direc- 
tion. Mejia rallying a few men in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento fol- 
lowed the regiment of the Empress. As they approached Maxi- 
milian spoke to Salm Salm. 

"Ride forward and see if Miramon can not be distinguished 
among those who are coming up." 

General Mendez, a lion in combat, and so weak from illness as 
to be put with difficulty upon his horse, was surprised in the Ala- 
meda, and surrounded. Would he surrender? Never: and the bat- 
tle began. It was a carnage — a massacre. His men fell fearfully 
fast — shot down, helpless, by an unseen and protected foe, A ball 
broke his left arm. He swayed in the saddle, but he held fast. 

"Bring here a strap!" he shouted, and strap me fast. I want 
to die in the harness." 

He tried to cut through to El Cerro. Met half way, and caught 
in a dreadful ambuscade, the slaughter was renewed. Another 
ball carried away the point of his chin, and yet a third disabled his 
right shoulder, and yet a fourth killed his horse. Scarcely alive, 
he was dragged out insensible. Reviving a little toward daylight, 
at six in the morniDg a fusilade finished him Among all the 
soldiers of Maximilian, he was the noblest, the bravest and the best. 

How fared it with Miramon, sound asleep when the traitor Lopez 
stole in through the battered wall at the head of an insatiable tide 
swallowing up the tottering and dissolving fabric of Imperialism? 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Awakened by the ringing of bells, the broken rattle of irregular 
musketry, and now and then a cannon shot, Miramon half arose in 
his bed, cleared his eyes from the heaviness of sleep, and spoke 
calmly to his aid-de-camp, 

"I fear that we are lost. Inside the walls a traitor has surely 
been at work." 

He dressed himself speedily, and descended into the street. It 
was full of soldiers. He imagined that they were his own. He 
spoke to them and announced his name and rank. An officer on 
horseback rushed upon him, put a carbine to his cheek and fired. 
Miramon, his jaw-bone shattered and his flesh blackened and 
powder burnt, swayed backward nearly from his feet, caught 
himself, lifted himself upright, and killed the officer dead in his 
saddle who had shot him. 

Miramon had a devoted body-guard, and it rallied around him. 
In the darkness the fight became furious. Striving in vain to reach 
the hill where he supposed the Emperor was making a desperate 
stand, and weak from the loss of blood, Miramon staggered upon an 
open door and entered a house. It was the house of Dr. Samanie- 
gos, who hid him and kissed him, and, Mexican like, went out into 
the streets to give his life away. He proclaimed aloud to the 
Liberals that Miramon was alone in his house, and that the time 
was opportune to lay hands upon him. A band rushed in and 
bound and gagged him, and dragged him away — suffering excruciat- 
ing torture — to the convent of Terrecitas. 

The Emperor, therefore, waited in vain for Miramon — waited in 
agony and uncertainty until two batteries of San Gregorio and 
Celaya opened a tremendous fire upon his position. Turning to 
Prince Salm Salm, he was heard to exclaim from the depths of his 
despair : 

" Oh, my friend, would that one of these shells would end it all 
now, and speedily." 

Alas! he was reserved for Mexican bullets. 

Directly, Colonel Gonzales galloped up with a portion of a regi- 
ment, saluted, and reported the condition of Miramon. Maximilian 
sighed heavily, rested his head upon his hands for a few moments, 
and then demanded suddenly of Castillo and Mejia if it were pos- 
sible to break through the lines of the enemy. 

Old Mejia, the small, cool, devoted Indian fatalist and fighter, 
turned his glass toward the enemy and surveyed them accurately 
through the night. When he had finished, he merely shrugged his 
shoulders and replied : 

416 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 417 

*' Sire, it is impossible. If you order it we will try it. For my 
part, I am ready to die. For fifty years I have waited for this." 

Maximilian then took Padillo by the arm and spoke to Lim 
briefly : 

" It is necessary to make a quick determination in order to avoid 
greater misfortunes. Is it surrender ? " 

" Yes, sire," said Castillo, Padillo, Gonzales, and '* Yes, sire," 
said Mejia, in a sad whisper, his head drooping upon his breast. 

Immediately a white flag was lifted up from the top of the hill, 
and messengers were sent at once to Escobedo asking an interview 
upon the following basis : 

"First — To make Maximilian alone the victim of the war. 
f ' ' Second — The men of the army to be treated with the soldierly 

consideration merited by their valor and devotion. 

"Third— The lives and liberty of those who were immediately 
in the Emperor's personal services." 

Before an answer was returned, Maximilian saw in the dis- 
tance a small squadron of soldiers, dressed in scarlet, and riding at 
a rapid speed toward the Campanas. He mistook them for his 
own Hussars, and cried out, his voice heavy with emotion : 

** It is too late — they come too late, but see what a fearful risk 
they run to reach me. Look how they endure the fire of the bat- 
teries. Who would not be proud of such soldiers ? " 

Alas ! they were not even a portion of his own decimated yet 
devoted foreign followers. They were the advance of Trevina's 
robber cavalry, coming to hunt the Emperor. 

As they drew near, the fire slackened, and suddenly ceased alto- 
gether. An officer, a captain, rode forward, and with a vulgar and 
cowardly epithet, demanded Maximilian. His Majesty, calm as a 
grenadier on guard, stepped outside the fortification, and replied 
with much sweetness and dignity: 

"I am he." 

"Mendezhas been shot," this officer continued brutally, "and 
Miramon, and by and by it will come Maximilian's and Mejia's 
turn." 

The Emperor did not answer. He pitied the coward who did 

not know how to treat misfortune. Sternly bidding his subordinate 

to go to the rear. General Echegarry, a Liberal officer of some 

humanity, rode to the front and demanded courteously the surrender 

of Maximilian and his officers. This was at once accorded, the 

Emperor again exclaiming, "If you should require anybody's life, 

, take mine, but do not harm my officers. I am willing to die if you 

I require it, but intercede with General Escobedo for the life of my 

? officers." 

Presently General Corona rode up, and again the Emperor inter- 
ceded for his personal adherents ; 



418 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

"If you want another victim, I am prepared to go. Do not 
harm those whose only crime in your eyes is their devotion to me." 

Corona replied coldly: 

** It does not belong to me to make promises. Until you are deliv- 
ered to the General-in-chief in person, your own life and that of your 
officers will be safe." 

Horses were furnished, and the Imperialist Generals, Costello, 
Mejia and Salm Salm, together with the Emperor, and the Liberal 
Generals, Corona and Echegarry, mounted and rode down the hill 
toward the city. It was not long before General Escobedo was 
met, when a countermarch was had, and they all returned to the hill 
again, and into the fort where they dismounted. 

After dismounting, Maximilian extended his hand to Escobedo. 
His own safety never, for a single instant, seemed to have entered 
his mind. His talk was ever of his followers. 

**If you wish more blood," he remarked to Escobedo, "take 
mine. I ask at your hands good treatment for the officers who 
have been true to me. Do not let them be insulted or maltreated." 

"All shall be treated as prisoners of war, even your Majesty," 
was the significant reply of the Mexican butcher. 

In an hour, with a heavy guard over him — homeless, crownless, 
soeptreless — Maximilian v/as a close prisoner in the convent of La 
Cruz. At his special request the officers of his household. Prince 
Salm Salm, Colonel Guzman, Minister Aguirre, Colonel Padillo, Dr. 
Basch, and Don Jose Blasio, his Secretary, were permitted to be 
imprisoned in the same building. They remained four days there — 
three of which the Emperor remained in bed, seriously sick of a 
dysentery. On the fifth day they were removed to the Convent of 
Terrecitas. After enduring seven days of rigorous captivity in this 
gloomy abode, they were taken to the Convent of Capuchiuas, 
where were also imprisoned all the Generals of the Imperial army. 
For four days they all remained together on the first floor. On 
the fifth, Maximilian, Mejia and Miramon were separated from the 
rest and imprisoned in the second story. The work of winnowing 
had already commenced — so soon and yet so ominous. 

Here the Emperor had leisure to review the past, and answer to 
his own heart the question: Had he done his duty. In his con- 
science, perhaps, there was little of upbraiding. True, he had com- 
mitted mistakes here and grievous errors of judgment yonder; but 
who is infallible ? He had tried to do right, and he had nothing to 
reproach himself with. No form of speech could express his aston- 
ishment at the betrayal of Lopez. He had trusted him in all things, 
confided in him, leaned upon him, lifted him up and promoted him, 
brought him to the flattery and friendship of his beautiful Empress — 
and in the one supreme moment of his destiny, in the very hour of 
the desperate crisis of his life and his reign, this Lopez; this tawny, 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OP THE WAR. 419 

fawning, creeping, cowardly thing, surrendered himself without so 
much as a quickened pulse-beat, or a guilty and accusing blush. He 
had been the godfather to Lopez's child. He had laid bare to Lopez 
the inmost recesses of his heart, and in his last and most terrible 
hour to be betrayed when the struggle he was making was not even 
for himself, was too bad. 

Nor did Lopez lay himself down on a bed of roses when the 
black treachery was done. His beautiful wife deserted him, and 
published to all Mexico the story of his infamy and ingratitude. 
His children abandoned his household and sought shelter and pro- 
tection with the mother. On dress parade one day, when an army 
was on review^ a Juarista Colonel smote him upon either cheek, the 
lazzaroni hooted at him and cried out "el triador! el triador!" as he 
passed along, the very beggars turned away their eyes from him 
without asking for alms, and nowhere could he find pity and 
charity except in the bosom of that church which, no matter how 
dark are the stains of blood upon the hands of the sinners, prays 
always that they may be made white as snow. 

The captivity of Maximilian continued. It was rigid, gloomy, 
foreboding — a little darker than Spanish captivity generelly, 
because to the cruelty of the original Spaniard, there had been added 
the cunning and selfish craftiness of the Indian. He was denied all 
intercourse with his fellows except that which the officials had. His 
food was coarse, his water not plenty, his sunlight barred out, and 
his pure air made pestilential because of the filth with which they 
delighted to surround him. 

Physical deprivations, however, made no way to subdue the lofty 
pride and the Christian heroism and fortitude of his kingly charac- 
ter. His head was yet borne splendidly erect, and in the day or the 
night-time, in a room that was like a dungeon, or in the Yestibule 
where the naked and unwashed animals of sentinels slept, he Was the 
same patient, kindly, courteous gentleman — true to his name, his 
lineage, and his manhood. 

The half-breed butchers, however, who were soon to try him, 
and to sit with sandalled feet about the table where military justice 
was to declare itself, tried first, in Indian fashion, to degrade the 
victim they meant to torture alive. A proclamation, purporting to 
have been written by Maximilian, was printed in every newspaper 
in the Empire. It bore no date. It was abject, cowardly, plausible 
if a Mexican had written it, a paltry forgery when ascribed to a 
Hapsburg, and it was as follows : 

" The Archduke Ferdinard Maximilian, of Hapsburg, ex-Emperor 
of Mexico, to all of its inhabitants : 

" Compatriots : 

" After the valor and the patriotism of the Republican armies 
have brought about the end of my reign in this city, the obstinate 



420 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

defense of which was indispensable to save the honor of my cause 
and of my race ; after this bloody siege, in which have rivaled in 
abnegation and bravery the soldiers of the Empire with those of the 
Republic, I am going to explain myself to you. 

" Compatriots : I came to Mexico animated not only with a firm 
hope of making you, and every one of you, individually happy, but 
also protected and called to the throne of Montezuma and Iturbide 
by the Emperor of France, Napoleon III. He has abandoned us 
cowardly and infamously, through the fear of the United States, 
placing in ridicule France itself, and making it spend uselessly its 
treasures, and shedding the blood of its sons and your own. When 
the news of my fall and death will reach Europe, all its monarchs, 
and the land of Charlemange, will ask an account of my blood, and 
that of the Germans, Belgians and French shed in Mexico, from 
the Napoleon dynasty. Then will be the end. 

" The whole world will soon see Napoleon covered with shame 
from head to foot. 

" Now the world sees his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, my 
august brother, supplicating for my life before the United States, 
and me a prisoner of war at the disposition of the Republican gov- 
ernment, with my crown and heart torn to pieces. 

" Compatriots: My last words to you are these: I ardently desire 
that my blood may regenerate Mexico; and that as a warning to all 
ambitious and inca,utious persons, you may know how, with pru- 
dence and true patriotism, to take advantage of your triumph, and 
through your virtues ennoble the political cause, the banner of 
which you sustain. May Providence save you, and make me worthy 
of myself. * * Maximilian. " 

The vile forgery went everywhere. The soldiers on guard that 
could read, read it aloud and laughed long and derisively in the 
hearing of the Emperor. A copy was brought to him. He wrote 
upon the back, in pencil, this: 

"I authorize Colonel and Aid-de-Camp Prince Salm Salm to 
deny in my name this last effort to disgrace me before posterity. 
This proclamation is not mine, its sentiments are not mine, its 
declarations are not true, and these, therefore, certainly can not be 
mine. Should Colonel and Aid-de-Camp Prince Salm Salm escape 
the fate certainly in store for me, he will publish in Europe this my 
earnest declaration." 

Salm Salm did survive him, and history has given the lie fully 
to the black plot worthy of the nation that concocted it. 

The trial was a farce. Since the work of the traitor Lopez, there 
had been no hope for Maximilian. 

On Tuesday morning, May 28, 1867, the friends of the Emperor 
began to bestir themselves in his behalf. Mr. Bansen, the Hamburg 
Consul, resident at San LuisPotosi, the wife of Prince Salm Salm, 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 42^ 

Baron Magnus, the Prussian Minister, and Frederick Hall, an 
American lawyer, concentrated themselves at Queretaro and laid 
plans for the acquittal of his Majesty. 

Maximilian talked much before his trial— the broken and uncon- 
nected talk of one who felt without seeing it, the shadow of approach- 
ing death. He declared that he came to Mexico with the sincere 
belief that he was called to the government by the great masses of 
the people. After his reception at Vera Cruz he had remarked to 
the Empress: " Surely the deputation were right when they said a 
majority of the Mexicans were in favor of our coming to be their 
ruler. I never in all Europe saw asovereign received with such 
enthusiasm as greeted us." 

He put upon Bazaiue the responsibility of the decree of October 
3, 1865, that decree which required the execution of all Liberals 
caught with arms in their hands. Bazaine, he said, appeared before 
the Council of State and declared that decree to be a military neces- 
sity. Juarez was in Texas, although Juarez had always denied hav- 
ing been driven out of the country. On this point he was exceed- 
ingly sensitive, and because of the statement made by the Emperor 
that Juarez was no longer in the territory he professed to rule over 
as President, he, the Emperor, was clearly of the opinion that 
Juarez most heartily despised him. 

Maximilian might have gone further and said to his hatred there 
had been added ferocity. 

The Emperor held the Americans in high estimation. He said: 
"The Americans are a great people for improvements, and are great 
lovers of justice. They pay such respect to the laws that I admire 
them. And if God should spare my life, I intend to visit the United 
States and travel through them. You can always rely on the word 
of an American gentleman." 

Efforts were made to bring the trial before the Mexican Congress, 
but it failed. The cruel Indian, Juarez, dared not trust any tribu- 
nal other than the court martial, one organized to convict, and one 
that would, therefore, be deaf, blind and unsparing. 

On the morning of June 4th, Maximilian remarked gayly to one 
of his counsellors : 

"We must hurry with business. I have been talking with 
Miramon. He has counted up the time and says that he thinks they 
will shoot us on Friday morning. " 

This was on Tuesday that he spoke so, and while under the 
impression that the lawyers he had sent for to the City of Mexico 
would not be permitted to come through the lines and defend him. 

Still the lawyers did not come, and the Princess Salm Salra 
determined to go alone to look for them. She had a carriage but 
no horses, and an application was made to a Liberal General to 
furnish just two animals to take her to the nearest stage station. 



423 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

The General replied that if he had a thousand to spare, he would 
not let one go for any such purpose. This kind of spirit prevailed, 
with here and there an exception, the entire army. In such spirit 
was the Court Martial selected, and in such spirit did Escobedo 
declare to Juarez that unless Maximilian was shot he could not 
hold his troops together. 

In these early days of June some thoughts of escape presented 
themselves to the Emperor's mind, and a plan to save him had been 
agreed upon. A slippery Italian rascal, one Henry B. del Borgo, a 
Captain in the Liberal army, had received two thousand dollars from 
Maximilian to purchase six horses, saddles, equipments and pistols. 
Of this amount the Italian spent six hundred dollars in horses and 
accoutrements, which were to be ready at a designated spot on a 
certain night. The three prisoners were f uthermore to be let out at 
the proper time, when a quick rush was to take place, and a desper- 
ate gallop for the mountains. Mejia knew all the country, the plan 
was a most feasible one, but to the surprise of every one, the Italian 
after divulging all the particulars of the plot, including his own 
actions was permitted to retire upon the balance of the money and 
take with him the compliments of Escobedo for the patriotism and 
ability he had manifested in thus finding out and exposing the 
schemes of the traitors. 

After this betrayal on the part of the miserable little Italian, all 
the foreigners were ordered to leave Queretaro. Escobedo would 
make no exceptions. Maximilian's American counsel had to go 
with the rest, and all of the Austrian and Belgian officers and 
soldiers who were not to be tried for their lives immediately. 

The Government of JMexico recognized Maximilian only as the 
Archduke of Austria, and his Generals, Miramon and Mejia, only 
as so-called Generals. As such the court martial proceeded to try 
them— a court composed as follows: Lieutenant-Colonel Platon San- 
chez, President; Captains Jose Vincente Ramirez, Emilio Lojero, 
Ignacio Jurado, Juan Rueday Auza, Jose Verastigui, and Lucas 
Villagran. It held its first session on the 27th day of May, 1867, 
and on the 14th of June, of the same year, at midnight, the three 
prisoners, Maximilian, Mejia, and Miramon, were sentenced to 
death. On the 16th, Escobedo telegraphed to Juarez as follows: " 
" Citizen President: 

"The sentence which the Council of War pronounced on the 
14th instant, has been confirmed at these headquarters, and to-day, 
at ten o'clock of the morning the prisoners were notified thereof, 
and at three o'clock this afternoon they will be shot. 

"Escobedo." 

A petition, asking Maximilian's life, signed by his Mexican law- 
yers, Messrs. Mariane Riva Palacio and Rafael Martinez de la Torre, 
was peremptorily denied. Again they sought the President, and 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 423 

begged at his hands a brief respite. Five days were granted, and 
an order sent by telegraph to Escobedo to stay the execution until 
the 19th. 

Juarez had his headquarters during the trial at San Luis Potosi. 
Hither came Baron Von A. V. Magnus, the Prussian Minister near 
the Imperial Government of Mexico. He came to intercede in behalf 
of Maximilian, and to do all that was possible to be done in his 
behalf. He, too, visited Juarez, represented to him the uselessness 
of the sacrifice, pointed out the impossibility of any further foreign 
intervention in the future, and in the name of mercy, and for the 
sake of Christian charity and forgiveness, asked the life of Max- 
imilian at the hands of the President of the Republic. 

It was of no avail. As cold as the snow upon the summit of 
Popocatapetl was the heart of Juarez. 

Baron Magnus abandoned the effort and went from San Luis to 
Queretaro. On the 15th news came that the Empress Carlota was 
dead. General Mejia was chosen to convey this information to the 
Emperor, which he did gently and delicately. Maximilian wept a 
little, went away alone for a few brief moments, and came back a 
king again. In his last hours he meant to be strong to every fate. 

In the afternoon he wrote to Baron Largo, a member of his per- 
sonal staff, and one who had been banished by General Escobedo on 
the 14th of March : 

" I have just learned that my poor wife has died, and though 
the news affects my heart, yet, on the other hand and under the 
present circumstances, it is a consolation. I have but one wish on 
earth, and that is that my body may be buried next to that of my poor 
wife. I entrust you with this, as the representative of Austria. I 
ask you that my legal heirs will take the same care of those who 
surrounded me and my servants, as though the Empress and I had 
lived." 

On the 18th Baron Magnus arrived in Queretaro, and imme- 
diately visited the Emperor. Still hoping against hope, he again 
put himself in communication with Juarez. Maximilian was to 
be shot on the 19th, and at midnight on the 18th Baron Magnus sent 
the following message: 
'* His Excellency Senok Lerdo de Tejada: 

" Having reached Queretaro to-day, I am sure that the three 
persons condemned on the 14th died morally last Sunday, and 
that the world so estimates it, as they had made every disposition 
to die, and expected every instant, for an hour, to be carried to the 
place where they were to receive death, before it was possible to 
communicate to them the order suspending the act. 

"The humane customs of our epoch do not permit that, after 
having suffered that horrible punishment, they should be made to 
die the second time to-morrow. 



4^4 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO; 

" In the name, then, of humanity and heaven, I conjure you to 
order their lives not to be taken; and I repeat to you again that I am 
sure that my Sovereign, his Majesty the King of Prussia, and all the 
monarchs of Europe united by the ties of blood with the imprisoned 
Prince, namely, his brother, the Emperor of Austria; his cousin, the 
Queen of the British Empire; his brother-in-law, the King of the 
Belgians, and his cousins, the Queen of Spain and the Kings of Italy 
and Sweden, will easily understand how to give His Excellency 
Senor Don Benito Juarez all the requisite securities that none of the 
three prisoners will ever return to walk on the Mexican Territory. 

"A. V. Magnus." 

To this appeal the present President of the Republic, then 
Juarez's Secretary of State, sent the following reply: 
" Senor Baron A. V. Magnus : 

" I am pained to tell you, in answer to the telegram which you 
have been pleased to send to me to-night, that, as I declared to you 
day before yesterday, in this city, the President of the Republic 
does not believe it possible to grant the pardon of the Archduke 
JVIaximilian, through the gravest considerations of justice, and of 
the necessity of assuring peace to the Republic. 

"Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada." 

No hope. Maximilian knew and felt it from the first, and so he 
had long ago made up his mind to die. He made one more effort 
however, to save the lives of his companions. On the 18th, the day 
before his execution, he sent the following dispatch to the Presi- 
dent : 
'• Senor Benito Juarez: 

" I desire that you may preserve the lives of Don Miguel Mir- 
amon and Don Tomas Mejia, who day before yesterday suffered all 
the tortures and bitterness of death ; and, as I manifested on being 
taken prisoner, I should be the only victim. 

"Maximilian." 

To this touching appeal there never came an answer. The sullen 
and savage Indian was losing caste in this contrast with the chival- 
rous and Christian European, and to escape further humiliation, he 
added to his cruelty the natural national characteristic of stoicism. 

At about half past eleven o'clock on the night of the 18th, Esco- 
bedo visited Maximilian. The interview was very brief. He asked 
the Emperor for his photograph, which was given him, shook hands 
with him at parting, and strode away a guilty, swarthy, conscience- 
less murderer, not daring to look back upon the young, dauntless 
face, so fair and so fresh in its nobleness and beauty. 

The Emperor next prepared himself for death. He took from 
his finger his marriage ring, and gave it to his physician. Dr. Samuel 
Basch, requesting him to carry it to the Archduchess his mother. 
He still supposed his wife to be dead, and God in His mercy let him 
die so. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 435 

There were yet some letters to write. The first was to Baron 
Largo: 

" I have nothing to look for in this world ; and my last wishes 
are limited to my mortal remains, which soon will be free from 
suffering and under the favor of those who outlive me. My physi- 
cian, Dr. Basch, will have my body transported to Vera Cruz. 
Two servants, Gull and Tudas, will be the only ones who will ac- 
company him. I have given orders that my body be carried to Vera 
Cruz without any pomp, and no extraordinary ceremony be made on 
board. I await death calmly, and I equally wish to enjoy calmness 
in the coffin. So arrange it, dear Baron, that Dr. Basch and my 
two servants be transported to Europe in one of the two war vessels. 

"I wish to be buried by the side of my poor wife. If the report 
of the death of my poor wife has no foundation, my body should be 
deposited in some place until the Empress may meet me through 
death. 

"Have the goodness to transmit the necessary orders to the 
Captain of the ship de Groeller. Have likewise the goodness to do 
all you can to have the widow of my faithful companion in arms, 
Miramon, go to Europe in one of the two war vessels. I rely the 
more upon this wish being complied with, inasmuch as I have rec- 
ommended her to place herself under my mother at Vienna. 

"Yours, 

"Maximilian. 
Queretaro, in the Prison of the Capuchinas, 18th of June. 1867. 

The second letter was again to Juarez: 

" Queretaro, June 19, 1867. 
" Senor Benito Juarez : 

" About to receive death in consequence of having wished to 
prove whether new political institutions could succeed in putting an 
end to the bloody civil war, which has devastated for so many years 
this unfortunate country, I shall lose my life with pleasure if its 
sacrifice can contribute to the peace and prosperity of my new 
country. Fully persuaded that nothing solid can be founded on a 
soil drenched in blood and agitated by violent commotions, I 
conjure you, in the most solemn manner and with the true sincerity 
of the moments in which I find myself, that my blood may be the 
last to be spilt ; that the saaJte perseverance, which I was pleased to 
recognize and esteem in tb^ midst of prosperity— that with which 
you have defended the dause which has just triumphed, may 
consecrate that blood to theViost noble task of reconciling the minds 
of the people, and in founding in a stable and durable manner the 
peace and tranquility of this unfortunate country. 

" Maximilian." 

This was all. The morning broke fair and white in the sky, and 
at h^lf past six three carriages drew up in front of the main gate of 



426 SHELBY'S EXPEDITION TO MEXICO ; 

the Convent of the Capuchinas. The bells rang in all the steeples, 
there were soldiers everywhere, and long lines of glittering steel 
that rose and fell in yet the soft, sweet hush of the morning. 

Into the first carriage got Maximilian and Father Soria, a priest. 
The Emperor's dress was very plain. He wore a single-breasted 
black frock coat, with all the buttons buttoned except the last one, 
a black vest, neck-tie and pantaloons, plain cavalry boots and a 
wide-brimmed hat, or sombrero. 

In the second carriage there came Miramon and his priest, in 
the third, Mejia and his. Then the solemn cortege started. In the 
extreme advance five cavalry rode, the one behind the other, with 
an interval between of twenty paces, and yet further in front of the 
five there rode a solitary Corporal. A company of infantry, eighty 
rank and file, came after the cavalry. Then followed the carriages, 
escorted by a battalion of sharpshooters, one-half of whom flanked 
each side of the road, marching parallel with the vehicles. A rear 
guard of 250 mounted men closed the mournful procession. 

The sun arose and poured its unclouded rays over the city. All 
the people were in the streets. On the faces of the multitude there 
were evidences of genuine and unaffected sorrow. Some among the 
crowd lifted their hats as the victims passed along, some turned 
away their heads and wept, and som'e, even amid the soldiers and 
amid the hostile ranks of the Liberals, fell upon their knees and 
wept. 

The place of surrender was to be the place of execution. North- 
west of the city a mile or more, the Hill of the Bells, El Cerro de las 
Campanas, upreared itself. It was enclosed on three sides by six 
thousand soldiers of all arms, leaving the rear or uncovered side 
resting upon a wall. 

It was half past 7 o'clock when the carriages halted at the place 
of execution. Maximilian was the first to alight. He stepped 
proudly down, took a handkerchief from his pocket and his hat from 
his head, and beckoned for one of his Mexican servants to approach. 

The man came. 

" Take these," the Emperor said. " They are all I have to give." 

The faithful Indian took them, kissed them, cried over them, fell 
upon his knees a few moments in prayer to the good God for the 
good master, and arose a hero. 

In front of the dead wall three crosses had been firmly imbedded 
in the ground. On each side was a placard bearing the name of the 
victims to be immolated there. That upon the right was where the 
Emperor was to be shot, that in the center was Miramon, that upon 
the left for the grim old stoic and fighter, Mejia. 

Maximilian stroked down the luxuriant growth of his long yellow 
beard, as it was his constant habit to do, and walked firmly to his 
place. 



AN UNWRITTEN LEAF OF THE WAR. 427 

The three men embraced each other three times. To Mejia he 
said: 

" We will meet in heaven." 

Mejia bowed, smiled, and laid his hand upon his heart. 

To Miramon he said: 

" Brave men are respected by sovereigns — permit me to give you 
the place of honor." 

As he said this he took Miramon gently by the arm and led him 
to the center cross, embracing him as he left him for the last time. 

Escobedo was not on the ground: An aide de-camp, however, 
brought permission for each of the victims to deliver a farewell 
address. The Emperor spoke briefly: 

"Persons of my rank and birth are brought into the world either 
to insure the welfare of the people, or to die as martyrs. I did not 
come to Mexico from motives of ambition. I came at the earnest 
entreaty of those who desired the welfare of our country. Mexicans, 
I pray that my blood may be the last to be shed for our unhappy 
country, and may it insure the happiness of the nation. Mexicans ! 
Long live Mexico ! " 

Mejia drew himself up as a soldier on duty, looked up once at 
the unclouded sky, and around upon all the fragrant and green- 
growing things, and bowed his head without speaking. 

Miramon drew from his pocket a small piece of paper and read 
as follows: 

"Mexicans! behold me, condemned by a Council of War, and 
condemned to death as a traitor. In these moments which do not 
belong to me, in which my life is already that of the Supreme 
Being, before the entire world I proclaim that I have never been a 
traitor to my country. I have defended my opinions, but my chil- 
dren will never be ashamed of their father. I have not the stain of 
treason, neither will it pass to my children. Mexicans! Long 
live Mexico! Long live the Emperor!" 

When Miramon ceased reading, Maximilian placed his hand on 
his breast, threw up his head, and cried out in a singularly calm 
and penetrating voice, "Fire!" 

Eighteen muskets were discharged as one musket. Mejia and 
Miramon died instantly. Four bullets struck the Emperor, three in 
the left and one in the right breast. Three of these bullets passed 
entirely through his body, coming out high up on the left shoulder, 
the other remained imbedded in the right lung. The Emperor fell 
a little sideways and upon his right side, exclaiming almost gently 
and sadly: 

"Oh! JELowhre! Ho'mbre\ Oh! man! Oh! man!" 

He was not yet dead. A soldier went close up to him and fired 
into his stomach. The Emperor moved slightly as if still sensible to 
pain. Another came out from the firing party, and, putting the 



428 SHELBY'S EXPEDITITION TO MEXICO; 

muzzle of his musket close up to his breast, 5hot him fairly through 
the heart. 

The tragedy was ended; Mexican vengeance was satisfied; the 
soul of the unfortunate prince was with its God, and until the 
judgment day the blood of one who was too young and too gentle 
to die, will cry out from the ground, even as the blood of Abel. 
Too generous to desert his comrades, too pure in heart to rule as 
he should have ruled, too confiding to keep a crown bestowed by a 
race bred to revolution, and too merciful in all the ways and walks 
of life to maintain fast hold upon a throne carved out from conquest 
and military power, he died as he had lived, imperial in manhood 
and heroic in the discharge of every duty. 



THE END. 










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